Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Virtual, Augmented, and Intelligent Environments

Stereoscopic imaging techniques have also become used for not only amusement but also in the industrial, medical care, and educational fields, however, symptoms due to the stereopsis have been reported. In this study, we especially focus on the effect of background motions on the equilibrium function. The body sway was recorded while/after viewing a sphere as a visual target synchronized/unsynchronized with periodic motion of the view point. Statistical analysis was conducted for the stabilograms.

Background. In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has emerged as an efficient distraction technique to reduce procedural pain among both adults and children. However, the effectiveness of VR as a distraction technique remains scarcely evaluated during many painful procedures. In many countries, such as Italy, VR analgesia is hardly applied.Aim. The current study aims to highlight the potentials and the limitations of VR analgesia for children’s pain management in clinical settings and to explore the feasibility and the effectiveness of VR distraction in Italy.Methods. Studies that applied VR analgesia to children and adolescents undergoing painful procedures in clinical settings were included in the analysis. Factors influencing VR analgesia and the effectiveness of VR distraction for pain management were considered. The feasibility and the effectiveness of a low-cost VR system was evaluated for patients undergoing venipuncture in an Italian children’s hospital.Results. Factors influencing VR analgesia are still sparsely investigated, particularly regarding the psychological variables, such as anxiety and coping strategies. Italian patients suffering from cancer and kidney diseases who used VR distraction reported lower levels of pain and higher levels of fun compared with the control group.Discussion. VR analgesia is destined to be applied more in clinical settings; however, VR systems designed for the specific use of VR analgesia in clinical settings are needed. In the Italian context, VR systems are necessary to improve the knowledge of VR analgesia among physicians, nurses, and clinical psychologists and encourage further research in this field.

Virtual reality (VR) can provide robust assessment of cognitive spatial processing skills in individuals with visual impairment. VR combined with objective measures of behavioral performance, such as eye and hand tracking, affords a high degree of experimental control, task flexibility, participant engagement, and enhanced data capture. Individuals with visual impairment typically have difficulties identifying objects in a cluttered environment. Furthermore, these difficulties may differ depending on the type of visual impairment. Specifically, individuals with cortical/cerebral visual impairment (CVI) may show a greater sensitivity to visual task complexity compared to those with ocular based visual impairment (OVI). We have developed a VR environment with integrated eye and hand tracking to simulate exploring a toy box to assess performance on a static object-based visual search task. A grid of toys was displayed for a brief duration while participants found and fixated on a specific toy hidden among others. For a given trial, we manipulated multiple factors: the number of unique distractor toys, a color/theme matched toy, and the background clutter. Results to date show that both visually impaired groups demonstrate increased variability in search patterns and reaction times as compared to controls. Additionally, performance of the CVI group fluctuates greatly as a function of task difficulty. Findings from the current work demonstrate a successful interaction between individuals with visual impairments and VR simulations in assessing high level visual function. Further studies will serve as theoretical foundation for the creation of new assessment and training paradigms for visually impaired individuals.

We propose a 3D environment in the form of a video game where the main idea is to increase Computer Science (CS) interest. We believe that by providing software that can be used by everyone, we can spark more interest in CS. We created a simple prototype emulating an Escape Room with the idea to attract individuals of any age range with a fun learning activity, but our primary focus is on teenagers and young adults. The puzzles in the game engage the player by giving them challenges that can be completed optimally by using computer science concepts. However, the game is presented as a typical puzzle game to avoid scaring away players who may have preconceived notions of computer science. The aim is to engage players through the puzzles to promote further interest in CS concepts.

This paper presents a system for vocational training and assessment of individuals with severe physical disabilities using immersive virtual reality. The system was developed at the University of South Florida’s Center for Assistive, Rehabilitation, and Robotics Technologies (CARRT). A virtual and physical assistive robot was used for the remote-control skills training. After going through several iterations, the system was tested by a total of 15 participants along with professional job trainers. The results were encouraging in further exploration of virtual reality as a promising tool in vocational training of individuals with severe physical disabilities.

Virtual reality (VR) systems are seeing growing use for training individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Although these systems indicate effective use of VR for training, there is little work in the literature evaluating different VR interaction techniques for this audience. In this paper, different VR interaction techniques are explored in the Virtual Reality for Vocational Rehabilitation (VR4VR) system and additional data analysis on top of our previously published preliminary results [1] was performed via a user study with nine individuals with ASD and ten neurotypical individuals. The participants tried six vocational training modules of the VR4VR system. In these modules, tangible object manipulation, haptic device, touch and snap and touchscreen were tested for object selection and manipulation; real walking and walk-in-place were tested for locomotion; and head mounted display and curtain screen were tested for display. Touchscreen and tangible interaction methods were preferred by the individuals with ASD. The walk-in-place locomotion technique were found frustrating and difficult to perform by the individuals with ASD. Curtain display received higher preference scores from individuals with ASD although they accepted the HMD as well. The observations and findings of the study are expected to give insight into the poorly explored area of experience of individuals with ASD with various interaction techniques in VR.

When grasping an object, a human needs to recognize the object. In general, after the center of gravity of the object is recognized from the object shape, the human grasps a position close to the center of gravity. This research analyzes the relationship between the object shape and the sight trajectory until grasping. The proposed method traces finger motions when grasping the virtual 3D objects displayed on a screen by using finger motion capture device. In the motion, the sight trajectory is also measured and analyzed by using the eye tracking device. We conducted experiments with five subjects and analyzed the relationship between the variation of the line of sight trajectory and the size of the grasped object.

Survival horror games played in virtual reality can trigger intense fright and anxiety in the players. Such unique characteristics can thus be exploited not only as a source of entertainment, but also as a tool for both emotion elicitation and emotional training. However, studies investigating the players’ experience and the emotional activation while playing virtual reality video games are still very limited and horror games represent an even more limited number of these. Within this context, this study was aimed to compare a horror game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, experienced through virtual reality as opposed to a non-immersive display modality (i.e. console system), and exploring differences in the usability and the emotional activation. In order to answer to such objectives, the game was played by a sample of 26 young adults, half of which played using Playstation VR, while the other half through a more traditional non-immersive console setup (PS4 Pro). The usability and the emotional impact of the game was assessed through self-report questionnaires and the recording of physiological indexes (heart rate, skin conductance response). Results showed that: (a) playing a horror video game in virtual reality was not more difficult than playing in a non-immersive display modality; (b) players showed an increased perceived anxiety both after playing the horror video game in virtual reality and playing in a non-immersive display modality; interestingly, the perceived sense of happiness significantly increased only after playing in virtual reality; finally the sense of presence resulted to be greater in virtual reality as opposed to the non-immersive condition.

The increasing immersion of technology on our daily lives demands for additional investments in various areas, including, as in the present case, the enhancement of museums’ experiences. One of the technologies that improves our relationship with everything that surrounds us is Augmented Reality. This paper presents the architecture of MIRAR, a Mobile Image Recognition based Augmented Reality framework. The MIRAR framework allows the development of a system that uses mobile devices to interact with the museum’s environment, by: (a) recognizing and tracking on-the-fly, on the client side (mobile), museum’s objects, (b) detecting and recognizing where the walls and respective boundaries are localized, as well as (c) do person detection and segmentation. These objects, wall and person segmentation will allow the projection of different contents (text, images, videos, clothes, etc.). Promising results are presented in these topics, nevertheless, some of them are still in a development stage.

In our previous study, we found it is possible to have an effect of change in the condition of consciousness (allocation of consciousness) on visually evoked postural response (VEPRs) Then, in this study, we verified effect of controlling consciousness on VEPRs, visually induced motion sickness (VIMS), a sense of presence while viewing 3D movies. Participants watched 3D movie consisted of several colored balls sinusoidal moving at 0.25 Hz in the depth direction for 3 min each under condition following pre-instruction. The detail of the pre-instruction were “sway body in a parallel/opposite direction”. The position of the body sway center of pressure was continuously recorded. As subjective evaluation, participants completed a simulator sickness questionnaire and reported three feelings (the sense of presence, motion and interactive) by using a visual analog scale. The results clearly showed that (1) The influence of pre-instruction appeared much stronger than that of VEPRs, and (2) The relationship between change in body sway and degree of VIMS or the feeling of presence do not always match under the situation included multi factors related to sense information or the condition of consciousness.

Recent advancements in Virtual reality (VR) have made them a potential technology to improve speech understanding for deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). We want to extend this commodity to live communication in theater plays, which has not been investigated so far. For this, present study evaluates the efficiency of a language processing system, which makes use of VR technology combined with AI implementations for automatic speech recognition (ASR), sentence prediction and spelling correction. A quantitative and qualitative study was performed and demonstrated good overall results of the system regarding DHH understanding and satisfaction along entire play sessions. abstract environment.

In this paper, we outline the development of SKOPE VR, a system for immersive interaction within a 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality(VR) Environment designed to teach of architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) students. The paper presents the potential capacity of immersive and interactive tools for teaching and will discuss the key challenges for creating 3-D environments with embedded interactivity. Then, the solution proposed in the SKOPE-VR system will be discussed in terms of its rationale and its development process. Finally, some of the advantages of using immersive technologies for teaching future AEC professionals will be discussed.

This paper investigates the formulation of hybrid reality via game play experience. The once world popular Pokémon Go is the research context, which is a great example of a hybrid reality game that mixes physical and virtual elements. In order to investigate the complex process of the shaping of hybrid reality, self-ethnology and interpretative phenomenology are used as the research methods. Although rules and goals have been provided by game developers, we found that the actual rules used are co-created by both the designer and individual players. New player experience could be created through “drawing on the spot” and borrowing. Furthermore, organizing resources about the game playing through interaction with other players contribute to the formulation of hybrid reality as well. The findings suggest the system functionality is not the most important element of a hybrid reality game. Game developers should provide flexibility on the storyline, allow the players to further develop their own unique experience. In addition, developers should consider cooperate with third-party application developers to enable rich and diverse hybrid reality.

The technological advances resulting from the Digital Revolution have enabled the growth of virtual spaces, of the most varied types and for various purposes, facilitating access to information, as well as communication between people. However, a large number of people cannot enjoy these benefits because they face difficulties related to accessibility in these environments. In this scenario, the objective of this work is to present a conceptual framework, which contain a set of Web accessibility guidelines to allow a greater number of people to take advantage of the resources and facilities provided by virtual environments, regardless of their physical or functional limitations. In addition, it should be emphasized that the present research is not intended the presentation of a rigid guide or a step by step, but rather a suggested model, composed of recommendations that represent a compilation of different surveys and that intends to offer a direction to developers in creating Web environments with better accessibility.

The last decades have been characterized by great advances in the field of information and communication technologies and innovative applications and services have been developed in all sectors. People who are more familiar with Internet technologies can take full advantage of the benefits brought by the new systems to everyday life, but, at the same time, if services are not carefully designed, they contribute to augment the digital gap between “info-skilled” users and people who are not acquainted with the new technologies. This paper provides an overview of interesting projects developed with the aim to favor social inclusion and to tear down barriers posed by digital technology, by supporting people with special needs (e.g., elderly and people with different impairments) in the fruition of e-services through easy forms of interactions. The study is restricted to solutions that envisage the TV device as the main user interface for supporting Ambient Assisted Living. From the survey, a basic set of services and interfaces, here described, appear to be fundamental for improving digital and social inclusion, but the design methodology for developing TV-based interfaces and services must be carefully chosen to reduce social marginalization.

Many industries have been transformed by the provision of service solutions characterised by personalisation and customisation - most dramatically the development of the iPhone. Personalisation and customisation stand to make an impact on cars and mobility in comparable ways. The automobile industry has a major role to play in this change, with moves towards electric vehicles, autonomous cars, and car sharing as a service. These developments are likely to bring disruptive changes to the business of car manufacturers as well as to drivers. However, in the automobile industry, both the user’s preferences and demands and also safety issues need to be confronted since the frequent use of different makes and models of cars, implied by car sharing, entails several risks due to variations in car controls depending on the manufacturer. Two constituencies, in particular, are likely to experience even more difficulties than they already do at present, namely older people and those with capability variations. To overcome these challenges, and as a means to empower a wide car user base, the paper here presents a basic concept of an intelligent driver profiling system for cars: the system would enable various car characteristics to be tailored according to individual driver-dependent profiles. It is intended that wherever possible the system will personalise the characteristics of individual car components; where this is not possible, however, an initial customisation will be performed.

As the number of Plug-In Electric Vehicles continues to rise, existing electrical grids need to adapt to support the expected charging demand of such vehicles. Fortunately, a growing number of renewable energy sources are also being introduced in current electrical grids, reducing the dependency on fossil fuels. Leveraged by the self-consumption legislation in several countries, the introduction of renewable energy sources continue to happen well beyond the end of the feed-in tariff rates. However, due to their variable nature, renewable energy sources are frequently characterized as intermittent resources, which cause mismatches in the required equilibrium between production and demand. In this scenario, the role of end users is very important, since they are not only required to participate in energy generation - becoming the so-called prosumers – but also they should allow the adjustment of the consumption, according with the generation levels. Plug-In Electric Vehicles, due to their power requirements, just exacerbate this problem. Following our previous work concerning scheduling algorithms for self-consumption scenarios, in this paper we describe the implementation of an Energy Management System for the charge scheduling of Electric Vehicles. The proposed system considers several requirements, including electrical grid limitations, present time and subsequent tariff costs, actual and predicted renewable energy generation levels, and user preferences. It then runs an optimization algorithm that decides when the charging of such vehicles should happen and controls the power delivered to charge them, accordingly.

Population aging is one of the most difficult challenges in the next years. The increase of life expectancy is one of the most important human achievements in the 21st century. Despite this achievement, it is also an important technological innovation to ensure the wellbeing of this new generation. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a technological revolution that aims to connect electronic devices used daily through the internet. This occurs thanks to advances and innovation in smart spaces such as wireless sensors, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and information security. Technology can be a key ally to Home Care, by generating solutions for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). AAL combined with the IoT is a promising solution for the elderly public, promoting more autonomy, security, and quality of life. However, the design of technological solutions that consider the opinion and needs of the elderly is still a problem to be researched. Given this context, this article presents a systematic study of publications from 5 scientific databases. The aim is to identify the participatory methods used in the design of IoT solutions for elderly Home Care, as well as how Personas and Semiotics methods were used in this context. The results include a consistent analysis that aims to assist designers, researchers, and developers in future solutions for Home Care and AAL for elderly people.

Smart home products are becoming widespread aiming to increase people’s independence, especially for the elderly and people with disabilities. In order to design them suitably for this community, their involvement in the requirement gathering and design process is particularly important. In this paper, we report a study we conducted with six people having various disabilities. The aim was to identify the type of smart product that mostly increases their independence at home. We used three requirement gathering methods in a participatory fashion, namely, cartographic mapping, future workshop, and cultural probe. The outcome of the study revealed that participants mostly needed a product for a bathroom, specifically a smart shower. The initial prototype design of the product was developed together with participants. Researchers further investigated the prototype design using littleBits electronic modules. The smart shower is anticipated to have the most effect in increasing not only user independence, but also privacy.

The general increase in life expectancy and the consequent ageing of the general population impose major challenges to modern societies. Most elderly people experience the typical problems related to old age, such as chronic health problems, as well as sensory and cognitive impairments. In addition, in today’s modern societies, where families have less and less time to look after their older relatives, the isolation of the elderly is a real concern and a highly recurrent problem, which is enhanced when they live alone. To solve, or at least minimize, these problems, a smart home monitoring system was developed, as presented and described in this paper. This solution is implemented based on a sensory network which detects anomalous behaviors, immediately triggering a warning to the caregiver or family.A strong concern when developing a project of this kind is the physical security of the elderly. Houses tend to have hazardous objects and characteristics that may inflict serious injuries to their occupants or, in extrema, even death. As time goes by, the elderly start losing muscle mass and osteoporosis may appear, as well as vision and hearing impairments, which increase the likelihood of falling. Several other serious accidents may also occur, such as gas leaks, floods and fire outbreaks. Therefore, this population would strongly benefit from a solution which helps predict and even prevent accidents before they happen.

Several augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems have been developed to present multimedia content to support the storytelling of older adults. To develop these systems, the AAC system designer requires information regarding the interaction of conversations in the field. Designing such systems requires careful consideration of not only the provision of content as stimulus for older adults but also the support for interlocutors to ask effective questions within the frequent sequential patterns. However, the efficacy of questions asked by interlocutors while presenting content has not been a major focus of research. This paper presents an analysis of peer conversations between geriatric health service facility residents with neurocognitive disorders and their care staff, while photographs are being shown on a touchscreen. As a result, we determined the questions and patterns that are effective in eliciting storytelling. These insights may be used to enhance the design of AAC systems for storytelling.

A percutaneous electrogastrogram (EGG) is a simple and low-restraint way to measure the electrical activity of the gastrointestinal tract. An electrogastrogram examination is a noninvasive method of evaluating gastrointestinal motility and autonomic nervous system activity. However, EGGs are not as widely used in clinical settings as electrocardiograms (ECGs) or electroencephalographs (EEGs) because an EGG can be impacted by electrical activity from the myocardium and diaphragm (due to respiration), and there is no method to relate the functions of the stomach to the data obtained. This paper examines the effect of exercise on gastric electrical activity using two exercise intensities to confirm the basic biological response of an EGG. It was found that after high-intensity exercising the spectrum density at the normal frequency band of the stomach (2.4–3.7 cpm) decreased, which may indicate a decline in gastric activity during exercise. Exercise intensity is thought to affect the electrical activity of not only the gastrointestinal tract but also other organs.

This paper explores and theorizes a space for creativity in further developing the ambient urbanizing concept in the context of smart cities. Theoretically this work is situated at the intersection of urbanizing the ambient, creativity, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the Internet of People (IoP) in relation to smart cities. The research design for this work incorporates an exploratory case study approach and multiple methods of data collection including survey and in-depth interviews. Group and individual discussions were also conducted with people from a range of sectors across the city. This work is significant in that it: (a) extends earlier work on urbanizing the ambient and the importance of people in smart cities; (b) sheds light on creativity in a digital context, enabled by the IoT and the emerging space of the IoP; (c) fosters increased accessibility to aware technologies such as the IoT through more aware people and the IoP; and (d) advances the concept of a more emergent, dynamic, and adaptive conceptualization of creativity, as in, ambient creativity.

There are several barriers (e.g., steps, slopes) that hinder the free movement of impaired people, both indoors and outdoors. Existing approaches for detecting barriers have an accuracy/coverage trade-off problem. For example, approaches that use a wheelchair with an accelerometer cannot detect barriers in areas that wheelchair users have not gone through. However, approaches that try to detect barriers from street images on the Internet fail to increase the accuracy of barrier detection because of occlusions that obscure the surface of the road. To address this problem, we propose a barrier detection approach that uses a machine learning model trained with acceleration data acquired from smartphones of able-bodied pedestrians. This idea uses pedestrians as sensor nodes for detecting barriers. This approach enables us to collect barrier information for a large area with high accuracy without any special investigators or devices. The results of the evaluation using acceleration data of pedestrians show that our method could identify barriers accurately by using hand-crafted features. Furthermore, we also clarify that the identification accuracy improves when features auto-generated by deep learning (Denoising Autoencoders) are used.

In this review the objective is to search for technologies that supervise the exercise or physical activity of people suffering from Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) at home or in the community. Patients with PAD have walking limitations and their quality of life progressively deteriorates. The regular practice of exercise can help mitigate these effects and even improve their health status. The methodology used was to search for scientific articles published since 2008, with the final result of 18 articles. The results show the most frequent technologies used are based on the accelerometer device, with the tests being performed on a treadmill at a hospital. The hospital tests are expensive, so a useful and viable alternative is the usage of mobile devices to help the health professionals record the exercise performed by their patients suffering with PAD.

The safety of people and spaces is of paramount importance for societies. With time, the implementation of safety measures is rapidly changing from a need to a priority. Video surveillance systems play a key role in the surveillance of crucial and critical areas as these systems help the authorities keep places safer. With the rapid growth of technology and the implementation of the smart city concept, it is becoming possible to develop and deploy wide area surveillance systems. The ease with which these systems can be installed in private and public spaces (e.g., homes, streets and parks) allow for the creation of ubiquitous monitored environments. Rapid intervention responses to any abnormal situation or the use of recorded video as evidence are some advantages of the use of this type of surveillance systems. Although ubiquitous video surveillance systems are relevant for present modern societies, their cost is still high. To solve or, at least to mitigate this problem, a low-cost smart surveillance system was developed, which is presented and described in this paper. The developed surveillance system, based on available low-cost technology, can help keep critical spaces under surveillance 24/7. The proposed solution was found to have a minimal cost, a low bandwidth, and to be scalable and adaptable to every client’s needs. Thus, the solution can be used by anybody (private and public) and applied in different contexts (e.g., residential, industrial). The system can provide still images, captured from surveillance video cameras, real time video and real time video processing, which can be used for motion detection. When this happens, the user is warned via an e-mail containing the identification of the respective surveillance camera. Only the relevant video events are sent, recorded and maintained in the cloud platform system, consequently reducing the amount of storage space required to maintain all the historical video events. The results of the tests carried out show that it is possible to stream a video from the surveillance cameras with an insignificant delay and that motion detection can be attained through real time video processing. The system presented potentiates a low-cost solution for a smart city in the surveillance field.

Powered exoskeletons are supposed to be one of the solutions for the shortage of workers caused by declining birthrate and a growing proportion of elderly people. We study a powered exoskeleton that supports worker wearing a radiation protection suit. It is reported that the humidity and temperature in the radiation protection suit are extremely high. EMG sensors are popular to the conventional powered exoskeletons, however, they are not suitable for ours because the high humidity and temperature make the wearer sweat profusely and the sweat make it difficult to use the EMG sensors appropriately. We propose to use 9-axis motion sensors on the wearer instead of EMG sensors to control the powered exoskeleton. The sensors rapidly measure the wearer motion in a high humidity and temperature environment. We evaluate the proposed method using a powered exoskeleton without binding knee in this report.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) applications need reliable hardware and the development of today’s sensors and cyber-physical systems for HCI applications is critical. Moreover, such hardware is becoming more and more self-powered, and mobile devices are today important devices for HCI applications. While battery-operated devices quest for the never-ending battery, aggressive low-power techniques are used in today’s hardware systems to accomplish such mission. Techniques like Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) and the use of subthreshold power-supply voltages can effectively achieve substantial power savings. However, working at reduced power-supply voltages, and reduced clock frequency, imposes additional challenges in the design and operation of devices. Today’s chips face several parametric variations, such as PVTA (Process, power-supply Voltage, Temperature and Aging) variation, which can affect circuit performance and reliability is affected. This paper presents a performance sensor solution to be used in cyber-physical systems to improve reliability of today’s chips, guaranteeing an error-free operation, even with the use of aggressive low-power techniques. In fact, this performance sensor allows optimize the trade-off between power and performance, avoiding the occurrence of errors. In order to be easily used and adopted by industry, the performance sensor is a non-intrusive global sensor, which uses two dummy critical paths to sense performance for the power-supply voltage and clock frequency used, and for the existing PVTA variation. The novelty of this solution is on the new architecture for the sensor, which allows the operation at VDDs’ subthreshold voltage levels. This feature makes this global sensor a unique solution to control DVFS, even at subthreshold voltages, avoid performance errors and allow optimizing circuit operation and performance. Simulations using a SPICE tool allowed characterizing the new sensor to work at sub-threshold voltages, and results are presented for a 65 nm CMOS technology, which uses a CMOS Predictive Technology Models (PTM) technology. The results show that the sensor increases sensibility when PVTA degradations increase, even when working at subthreshold voltages.

How can a social robot get physically close to the people it needs to interact with? We investigated the effect of a social gaze cue by a human-sized mobile robot on the effects of personal space invasion by that robot. In our 2$$\,\times \,$$2 between-subject experiment, our robot would approach our participants (n = 83), with/without personal space invasion, and with/without a social gaze cue. With a questionnaire, we measured subjective perception of warmth, competence, and comfort after such an interaction. In addition, we used on-board sensors and a tracking system to measure the dynamics of social positioning behavior. While we did find significant differences in the social positioning dynamics of the participants, no such effect was found upon quantitative analysis of perception of the robot. In a subsequent inductive analysis we further investigated these results, our findings suggesting that the social cue did play a role for the participants – particularly related to their perceived safety.

This study aims to propose the framework of the interactive upper-limb rehabilitation system with brain-computer interfaces. The system mainly includes an interactive rehabilitation training platform, a rehabilitation database system, and an EEG and EMG acquisition system. The interactive rehabilitation training system platform includes a virtual rehabilitation game system and an interactive upper-limb rehabilitation device by which a user can perform proactive and reactive rehabilitation.

Accessibility of library search tools is measured not only by their adherence to accessibility guidelines, but also by the ease they offer users to find accessible resources. This makes library metadata an object of study in library accessibility. Past studies encouraged exploring the application of metadata in fostering accessibility. The studies also recommend considering user requirements. This study aimed to examine the role of metadata in making the process of resource discovery and access accessible to people with low vision impairments. Based on recommendations of past studies, a simple prototype was developed to test the idea of allowing users to set their own metadata preferences on their search interfaces. Participants were recruited to explore the prototype. The initial findings showed that adding such option in preference settings may be more appealing to frequent users than “one-time” users. However, the participants were able to provide comments on what to improve for the next iteration.

The article demonstrates how 3-D-printing can be used in an appropriate pedagogical setting to empower people with complex disabilities to design and produce assistive tools. It refers to the SELFMADE project, which is linked to the research and practice of assistive technology in special education with a focus on participation in everyday life/leisure time, work and communication. Within the project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, a MakerSpace was set up in a Service Center for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) in Dortmund, Germany. The Service Center for AAC is a place where the specific competencies needed to work with persons with disabilities are present. This project uses 3-D-printing as technology, as well as the processes and platforms of social innovation. Starting with group of persons with movement disorders and complex communication needs, SELFMADE tries to enable all persons with disabilities to design and produce products with a 3-D-printer as well as sharing the designs with other people.

The visit to cultural places can be an enormous pleasure, where visitors are driven to see and explore historical or contemporary objects. The same journey can also be fastidious when the visitor is taken to lengthy walks, unwanted collections or the objects archive is too large. For many of us, a visit should be something limited in time, showing a variety of things of our own interest. Information systems and in particular mobile devices can play a fundamental role to get us close to that objective by collecting information used to feed recommender systems.This paper studies the use of an implicit recommender system to propose which points of interest should be explored in cultural heritage places. In its present form, the recommender system, to be supported on data acquired by a mobile application, suggests artworks or artists supported on the user’s history. Experimental results are presented, showing the effectiveness of the method.

This paper will discuss the requirements and environment surrounding accessibility in Higher Ed institutions in the U.S., and their attempts to tackle these challenges. We will go on a panorama tour of the structure and culture of large universities and their constituents; touch on how accessibility fits into teaching, research and administration responsibilities; cover perspectives from legal, students, faculty, support staff; and take a look at policies, operations and culture impacting accessibility efforts.

We present a first overview with regard to a set of users of interactive systems who, by some members of the social sciences, are regarded as simple goods or customers because of the revenue they generate in R&D pseudo-projects. Both in the EU as well as in America those “pseudo-projects” are often totally financed by the public or private sector. Besides, we establish the north of the compass, looking at a real crossroads that millions of users must face daily in the view of pseudo scientists who do not have either the theoretical and/or practical knowledge, nor the competence and human skills in the treatment towards that kind of users. Finally, we explain a set of heuristic techniques to discover those pseudo scientific investigations, such as the profile of those professionals not capable of such research.

We present the first results of a heuristic-diachronical evaluation in the sector of the scientific publications related to human-computer interaction and computer science, tending to distort the main goals of the formal and factual sciences and the social communication in the scientific context of the new millennium. We also present the human-social factors and the strategies used to increase the gap between the sciences, the mercantilism and scientific elitism. Finally, a first vademecum has been generated of the components that must be considered at the moment of choosing a publisher and/or interrelating with an editor of scientific information in the context of the new technologies, computer science, human-computer interaction and all its derivations (i.e., big data, semantic web, artificial intelligence, web of things, web composition and mashup, etc.) in the next decades.

Picturemarks is a proof-of-concept web platform that enables annotation, curation, and augmentation of works. We investigate how a mining media platform can browse a huge set of image objects along with their digital object identifiers, leading to completely new mining media and automatic bookmarking scenarios, eliminating the need of manual bookmarking and repeated searching. Our web platform is entirely real-time and is designed to work on any platforms. We present a detailed exploration in how the platform is developing media-rich, shareable stories and forming augments about them, both on individual and collective level.

Mooqita creates, delivers, and proctors a massively open online course (MOOC) in conjunction with a regional homeless shelter and local industry for people currently experiencing homelessness. It is estimated that 25% of the homeless are working or have worked within the past quarter. Additionally, around 30% of homeless in the metro area have previously served in the armed forces. Some number of the homeless are employed or employable: still, these numbers are an indicator that the local homeless population is suffering from a basic mismatch of skills and the local labor market. Mooqita provides an ideal match because local companies face a shortage of workers, while potential employees struggle with a variety of challenges that may interfere with gaining the appropriate training and experience required by those employers. By designing the program specifically to target this population, we meet their needs for training and valuable job skills in a uniquely challenging situation. The self-paced course will concentrate on three locally in-demand technology skills. The value of this approach to learners is three-fold. Learners will learn by doing with practical, near-to-real world challenges. They will graduate from the MOOC with in-demand skillsets. Finally, tying learning outcomes to small payments incentivizes course completion while gaining financial stability. Local industry will also benefit from a stronger workforce pipeline trained to their specific needs.

The current proliferation of 3-d representations of cultural heritage objects presents a new category of challenges for the curation and search methods used to access the growing amount spatial data-sets. Spatial data will soon be a new standard in the representation of object collections as the methods and technologies are quickly improving. The LibraryMachine project investigates how spatial data can be leveraged to improve the search experience and to integrate new qualities of object representation. It is tailored to the needs of Special Collections, a type of collection with particularly heterogeneous holdings ranging from books, archival documents to tangible objects and dynamic objects, making it the ideal testbed to investigate new forms of access and dissemination for cultural heritage resources. We are reporting on the first phase of a research endeavor consisting of three phases, iterating our research questions through various forms of representation and viewing frameworks including public touch-screen installations, mobile tablet and VR deployment.

Creating an accessible environment, whether in the digital or built landscape, is a goal to which we all aspire. Getting there can be somewhat daunting and hard to envision. We certainly have guidance from the regulatory world to begin the journey towards greater inclusion and accessibility (e.g. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 [1], W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [2], Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1972 [3]), but how to address those situations that we don’t know exist? What are the pressing issues right now?Following the lead of peer institutions and the direction given in various U.S. Department of Justice and Office of Civil Rights resolution agreements, the University of Virginia has created an online reporting mechanism involving key functional areas across the campus to address and remediate accessibility issues ranging from those with immediate solutions to long-term capital projects. Based on a distributed responsibility model and built by University of Virginia (UVA) developers, “Report A Barrier” is designed to allow anyone (university community members and guests) to report what they may consider a barrier to access.

The processes of formulation, implementation and political deliberation for the correct operationalization of public administrations has transformed into a complex endeavour at a time where the idea of representative democracy is going through important changes and future challenges. The idea of public administration and governance has become increasingly decentralized and overloaded with new interactive processes which involve a greater number of political and social actors. This has given rise to new collaborative, interactive, and participatory governance strategies to create new public and social value. Moreover, this has opened the gate for the emergence of new digital platforms of participatory democracy, clearing the path for public and digital social innovation. This paper is focused on an open participatory initiative developed by the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country, to develop a digital platform Public Budgeting for the year 2018. This strategy was developed along 2017 to redefine public budgeting through agile platforms of citizen participation.

Portugal, as part of the European Union, has general legislation regarding accessibility and inclusion for general purposes, particularly for education. There are several international and national initiatives, including some projects. However, disabled and non-disabled people still do not share equal opportunities. In this project a proposal for a remote class system is presented, which includes sign language interpretation, targeted at those students who cannot be physically present in the classroom and/or need sign language interpretation. The system is based on audio and video communication between the classroom, the student and an interpreter, so that the student can access and understand the content of the class in real-time, as well as be able to interact with the professor and classmates. A prototype is being developed in conjunction with the Portugal Telecom Foundation, which should be a step forward to a new full-featured service targeted at educational institutions and disabled students.

Sociable robots are being used increasingly as interfaces for various services. Children born after 2010, i.e., the “artificial intelligence generation,” are familiar with social robotic interfaces, and such interfaces can be an essential factor in their mental development. In this case study, the NAO humanoid robot was introduced to elementary school students, where the topic focused on the question “What is life for me?” Learning activities involved collaborative discussions with NAO, questioning a NAO programmer, watching a movie about a care robot, group discussions, activities in which the students pretended to be NAO while speaking to a human, and individual reflective writing. The learning activities did not involve lectures. Changes in student awareness were tracked based on their writings and recorded discussions.Initially, the students were interested in the robot’s mechanical functions. However, over time, following programming activities, consideration of NAO’s commonalities with humans, and discussions about the life of NAO, the students became aware that it was natural to feel that NAO possessed life while simultaneously understanding its mechanical nature. It is considered that the students projected their own consciousness onto NAO and expected NAO and expected it to feel happiness when working together.

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary area that uses computational tools to process large amounts of biological data, such as sequence and structures of biological macromolecules, often derived from experimental methods. To manipulate these data and obtain meaningful results, bioinformatics employs a variety of databases and software tools based on complex interfaces, command line tools, task integration, abstract information, and jargons of a specific knowledge domain. Human-computer interaction issues, such as usability, ergonomics, satisfaction of use, and accessibility may hinder the efficient exploration of the multidimensional nature of biological information. In an educational context, these issues constitute barriers to the use of these tools, particularly by visually impaired users. In this artic, we investigate the technological/pedagogical resources used for teaching bioinformatics in the Brazilian context and the perceptions of educators about the inclusion of the visually impaired. A quantitative-qualitative methodology was used for data collection and analysis. The study shows the tools and procedures most commonly used to support the teaching of bioinformatics in Brazilian universities. Also, it reveals that most bioinformatics teachers are not prepared to work with visually impaired students, evidencing the lack of information on assistive/inclusive technologies and/or their use.

This study resulted in the development of a mobile social platform, called Mood Canteen, which has the purpose of meal cuisine and recipe sharing. Mood Canteen has two important characteristics: (1) to establish the relationship between food and emotion: To construct an interaction between food and personal emotions, Mood Canteen applies an emotion analysis mechanism on SNS to analyze emotions based on semantics, emoticons/emoji, and images of food- and cuisine-related posts, and it matches those emotions with food to create a user’s personal emotional state database and emotional food database according to the study’s results. (2) To establish an emotion-complementing healing system: To make emotion cuisine recommendations for users that meet their emotional state and help users alleviate negative emotions and promote positive emotions by sharing recipes and meals, Mood Canteen incorporates a newly created personalized meal recommendation mechanism that provides users with the appropriate comfort food selection based on a personal emotional state database and emotional food database. In addition, based on the characteristics and requirements of the mobile user interface, this study applied the SMASH usability heuristics to initiate the usability measurements of the developed Mood Canteen system.

Using the smart tourism ecosystem model as its framework as well as the strength of ties theory and the SNS social computing formula as a theoretical basis, this study establishes the Living Green tourism ecosystem to improve connections between businesses and the smart travel itinerary recommendation mechanism to promote the development of the entire industry. The Living Green tourism ecosystem has two major innovative features. (1) Visualizing industrial activity intensity and social connection intensity between businesses can not only help clearly understand the development of local businesses and assist in evaluating the effectiveness of industry development but also provide a reference for destination marketing organizations or relevant government agencies in terms of supporting the development of disadvantaged business segments. (2) The application of social media and social networks analysis helps implement the travel and tourism industry’s development strategies. Based on businesses’ social behaviors and interaction modes on social platforms, the tourism ecosystem calculates industrial connection intensity, uses it as an index for smart travel itinerary recommendations, and further enhances the overall promotion and development of the travel and tourism industry network.

This paper will provide a case study of Temple University’s collaborative efforts to develop and implement a comprehensive accessible technology project and the framework of the university Accessible Technology Initiative, which facilitated the essential collaborations. The university’s Accessible Technology Compliance Committee created a disability inclusion and accessibility awareness training to ensure that the university community understands its responsibilities and is aware of available support resources. The success of this project was the result of strategies and collaborations among participants in the broader initiative.