Framework of controlling 3d virtual human emotional walking using BCI

A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is the device that can read and acquire the brain activities. A human body is controlled by Brain-Signals, which considered as a main controller. Furthermore, the human emotions and thoughts will be translated by brain through brain signals and expressed as human mood. This controlling process mainly performed through brain signals, the brain signals is a key component in electroencephalogram (EEG). Based on signal processing the features representing human mood (behavior) could be extracted with emotion as a major feature. This paper proposes a new framework in order to recognize the human inner emotions that have been conducted on the basis of EEG signals using a BCI device controller. This framework go through five steps starting by classifying the brain signal after reading it in order to obtain the emotion, then map the emotion, synchronize the animation of the 3D virtual human, test and evaluate the work. Based on our best knowledge there is no framework for controlling the 3D virtual human. As a result for implementing our framework will enhance the game field of enhancing and controlling the 3D virtual humans’ emotion walking in order to enhance and bring more realistic as well. Commercial games and Augmented Reality systems are possible beneficiaries of this technique. © 2015 Penerbit UTM Press. All rights reserved

A multimodal emotion detection system during human-robot interaction

In this paper, a multimodal user-emotion detection system for social robots is presented. This system is intended to be used during human-robot interaction, and it is integrated as part of the overall interaction system of the robot: the Robotics Dialog System (RDS). Two modes are used to detect emotions: the voice and face expression analysis. In order to analyze the voice of the user, a new component has been developed: Gender and Emotion Voice Analysis (GEVA), which is written using the Chuck language. For emotion detection in facial expressions, the system, Gender and Emotion Facial Analysis (GEFA), has been also developed. This last system integrates two third-party solutions: Sophisticated High-speed Object Recognition Engine (SHORE) and Computer Expression Recognition Toolbox (CERT). Once these new components (GEVA and GEFA) give their results, a decision rule is applied in order to combine the information given by both of them. The result of this rule, the detected emotion, is integrated into the dialog system through communicative acts. Hence, each communicative act gives, among other things, the detected emotion of the user to the RDS so it can adapt its strategy in order to get a greater satisfaction degree during the human-robot dialog. Each of the new components, GEVA and GEFA, can also be used individually. Moreover, they are integrated with the robotic control platform ROS (Robot Operating System). Several experiments with real users were performed to determine the accuracy of each component and to set the final decision rule. The results obtained from applying this decision rule in these experiments show a high success rate in automatic user emotion recognition, improving the results given by the two information channels (audio and visual) separately.The authors gratefully acknowledge the funds provided by the Spanish MICINN (Ministry of Science and Innovation) through the project “Aplicaciones de los robots sociales”, DPI2011-26980 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Moreover, the research leading to these results has received funding from the RoboCity2030-II-CM project (S2009/DPI-1559), funded by Programas de Actividades I+D en la Comunidad de Madrid and cofunded by Structural Funds of the EU

An Information-Theoretic Framework for Consistency Maintenance in Distributed Interactive Applications

Distributed Interactive Applications (DIAs) enable geographically dispersed users to interact with each other in a virtual environment. A key factor to the success of a DIA is the maintenance of a consistent view of the shared virtual world for all the participants. However, maintaining consistent states in DIAs is difficult under real networks. State changes communicated by messages over such networks suffer latency leading to inconsistency across the application. Predictive Contract Mechanisms (PCMs) combat this problem through reducing the number of messages transmitted in return for perceptually tolerable inconsistency. This thesis examines the operation of PCMs using concepts and methods derived from information theory. This information theory perspective results in a novel information model of PCMs that quantifies and analyzes the efficiency of such methods in communicating the reduced state information, and a new adaptive multiple-model-based framework for improving consistency in DIAs. The first part of this thesis introduces information measurements of user behavior in DIAs and formalizes the information model for PCM operation. In presenting the information model, the statistical dependence in the entity state, which makes using extrapolation models to predict future user behavior possible, is evaluated. The efficiency of a PCM to exploit such predictability to reduce the amount of network resources required to maintain consistency is also investigated. It is demonstrated that from the information theory perspective, PCMs can be interpreted as a form of information reduction and compression. The second part of this thesis proposes an Information-Based Dynamic Extrapolation Model for dynamically selecting between extrapolation algorithms based on information evaluation and inferred network conditions. This model adapts PCM configurations to both user behavior and network conditions, and makes the most information-efficient use of the available network resources. In doing so, it improves PCM performance and consistency in DIAs

The Use of digital games to enhance the physical exercise activity of the elderly : a case of Finland

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), population ageing is a global phenomenon, which brings both challenges and opportunities for society. The current longer expected lifespan can create opportunities for the elderly to contribute in many ways to their families and communities. However, it greatly depends on their quality of life, which is affected by many factors, including physical and functional health, social well-being, and cognitive abilities. The WHO (2012) states that physical health is one of the indicators for the elderly’s quality of life, and it declines with increasing age. Participation in regular physical exercises can help the elderly improve their physical and mental health, and this has been aided by the use of modern technologies to promote the elderly’s physical and functional health. Of these latest technologies, digital games have shown promise to improve and enhance the elderly’s physical activities through fun and engaging gameplay. The literature highlights that some commercial games in the market (e.g. Microsoft Kinect- Sports and Nintendo Wii Sports games) have the potential to improve the elderly’s physical health such as gait, balance, and fall prevention. However, researchers argue that these commercial games are not designed specifically for the elderly and their physical exercise activities. They state that most commercial games are not user-friendly for the elderly whose functional and physical abilities are limited due to their advanced years. The literature points out that more studies need to be undertaken to understand the usability and usefulness of digital games for physical exercise activities so that game designers can create elderly-friendly digital games in the future. In Finland, the government has been focusing on promoting healthy ageing and increasing home care services for the elderly. In recent years, Finnish researchers have used digital games to promote older Finns’ healthy and active ageing. The existing literature, whilst showing the potential of digital games for elderly Finns’ physical health, also acknowledges further research is needed particularly in the context of Finland. Thus, in this study, we aimed at investigating digital games to specifically assess their applications for older Finns’ physical activities, focusing on the quality of users’ experiences, and their reported ease of use and perceived usefulness. We used the mixed methods approach, which applies both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The study design included four stages: requirements gathering, analysis and design, prototyping, and evaluation. Firstly, we conducted pre-studies to elicit users’ requirements. This was followed by the analysis of the resulting data to identify trends and patterns, which fuelled ideas in the brainstorming game design and development phases. The final product was a digital game-based physical exercise called the Skiing Game. We then evaluated the Skiing Game in Finland with 21 elderly Finns (M=7, F=14, Average Age =76). By using questionnaires, observation, and interviews, we investigated user experiences, focusing on the game’s usability, and usefulness for enhancing the physical activity and wellbeing of the elderly. We also conducted a comparative test of the Skiing Game in Japan with 24 elderly Japanese participants (M=12, F=12, Average Age = 72) to further understand non-Finnish elderly users’ experiences. The findings from the usability study of the Skiing Game in Finland demonstrated that elderly Finns had a positive experience in the gameplay, and their motivation was noticeably high. It also confirmed that elderly Finns have a genuine interest in digital game-based exercises and strong intentions to play digital games as a form of physical exercise in the future. Although prior to the study most of them had negative views and misconceptions about digital games, after the gameplay their attitudes were decidedly positive. They acknowledged that whilst playing digital games could be an alternative way of exercising for them their use would primarily be when they don’t have access to their usual non-digital physical exercise. The Japanese usability of the Skiing Game showed that the elderly Japanese people also had positive user experiences in playing digital games, and also intend to use them in the future. Similarly, after playing the game they reported that their attitudes towards digital games become positive, and indicated playing digital games could be an alternative way of exercising. Although the comparison of the two studies suggests that the elderly Finns had relatively more positive experiences whilst playing the Skiing Game, compared to their Japanese counterparts, in general, both groups had a positive experience in the gameplay and showed interest in digital games as an alternative exercise. Based on the usability lessons learned from these two studies, recommendations for practitioners and designers regarding improvements in game design and development are made in this report. Implementing these modifications into future designs and further development of digital games for the elderly will improve their commercial viability and user uptake. The findings from this study can provide valuable insights, particularly for Finnish policymakers and healthcare practitioners who are keen to introduce digital games into the aged-care sector in Finland. The studies have also provided valuable insights into the optimal methods for introducing Finnish digital games to international markets, in particular, digital games tailored specifically for the physical exercise needs and motivations of the elderly. By taking into consideration the limitations of the study, we provide our future studies and further improvements of the game to be conducted

Re-engineering jake2 to work on a grid using the GridGain Middleware

With the advent of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), engineers and designers of games came across with many questions that needed to be answered such as, for example, "how to allow a large amount of clients to play simultaneously on the same server?", "how to guarantee a good quality of service (QoS) to a great number of clients?", "how many resources will be necessary?", "how to optimize these resources to the maximum?". A possible answer to these questions relies on the usage of grid computing. Taking into account the parallel and distributed nature of grid computing, we can say that grid computing allows for more scalability in terms of a growing number of players, guarantees shorter communication time between clients and servers, and allows for a better resource management and usage (e.g., memory, CPU, core balancing usage, etc.) than the traditional serial computing model. However, the main focus of this thesis is not about grid computing. Instead, this thesis describes the re-engineering process of an existing multiplayer computer game, called Jake2, by transforming it into a MMOG, which is then put to run on a grid

Multimedia

The nowadays ubiquitous and effortless digital data capture and processing capabilities offered by the majority of devices, lead to an unprecedented penetration of multimedia content in our everyday life. To make the most of this phenomenon, the rapidly increasing volume and usage of digitised content requires constant re-evaluation and adaptation of multimedia methodologies, in order to meet the relentless change of requirements from both the user and system perspectives. Advances in Multimedia provides readers with an overview of the ever-growing field of multimedia by bringing together various research studies and surveys from different subfields that point out such important aspects. Some of the main topics that this book deals with include: multimedia management in peer-to-peer structures & wireless networks, security characteristics in multimedia, semantic gap bridging for multimedia content and novel multimedia applications

Enhanced life-size holographic telepresence framework with real-time three-dimensional reconstruction for dynamic scene

Three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction has the ability to capture and reproduce 3D representation of a real object or scene. 3D telepresence allows the user to feel the presence of remote user that was remotely transferred in a digital representation. Holographic display is one of alternatives to discard wearable hardware restriction, it utilizes light diffraction to display 3D images to the viewers. However, to capture a real-time life-size or a full-body human is still challenging since it involves a dynamic scene. The remaining issue arises when dynamic object to be reconstructed is always moving and changes shapes and required multiple capturing views. The life-size data captured were multiplied exponentially when working with more depth cameras, it can cause the high computation time especially involving dynamic scene. To transfer high volume 3D images over network in real-time can also cause lag and latency issue. Hence, the aim of this research is to enhance life-size holographic telepresence framework with real-time 3D reconstruction for dynamic scene. There are three stages have been carried out, in the first stage the real-time 3D reconstruction with the Marching Square algorithm is combined during data acquisition of dynamic scenes captured by life-size setup of multiple Red Green Blue-Depth (RGB-D) cameras. Second stage is to transmit the data that was acquired from multiple RGB-D cameras in real-time and perform double compression for the life-size holographic telepresence. The third stage is to evaluate the life-size holographic telepresence framework that has been integrated with the real-time 3D reconstruction of dynamic scenes. The findings show that by enhancing life-size holographic telepresence framework with real-time 3D reconstruction, it has reduced the computation time and improved the 3D representation of remote user in dynamic scene. By running the double compression for the life-size holographic telepresence, 3D representations in life-size is smooth. It has proven can minimize the delay or latency during acquired frames synchronization in remote communications

A theoretical and practical approach to a persuasive agent model for change behaviour in oral care and hygiene

There is an increased use of the persuasive agent in behaviour change interventions due to the agent‘s features of sociable, reactive, autonomy, and proactive. However, many interventions have been unsuccessful, particularly in the domain of oral care. The psychological reactance has been identified as one of the major reasons for these unsuccessful behaviour change interventions. This study proposes a formal persuasive agent model that leads to psychological reactance reduction in order to achieve an improved behaviour change intervention in oral care and hygiene. Agent-based simulation methodology is adopted for the development of the proposed model. Evaluation of the model was conducted in two phases that include verification and validation. The verification process involves simulation trace and stability analysis. On the other hand, the validation was carried out using user-centred approach by developing an agent-based application based on belief-desire-intention architecture. This study contributes an agent model which is made up of interrelated cognitive and behavioural factors. Furthermore, the simulation traces provide some insights on the interactions among the identified factors in order to comprehend their roles in behaviour change intervention. The simulation result showed that as time increases, the psychological reactance decreases towards zero. Similarly, the model validation result showed that the percentage of respondents‘ who experienced psychological reactance towards behaviour change in oral care and hygiene was reduced from 100 percent to 3 percent. The contribution made in this thesis would enable agent application and behaviour change intervention designers to make scientific reasoning and predictions. Likewise, it provides a guideline for software designers on the development of agent-based applications that may not have psychological reactance

BEMDEC: An Adaptive and Robust Methodology for Digital Image Feature Extraction

The intriguing study of feature extraction, and edge detection in particular, has, as a result of the increased use of imagery, drawn even more attention not just from the field of computer science but also from a variety of scientific fields. However, various challenges surrounding the formulation of feature extraction operator, particularly of edges, which is capable of satisfying the necessary properties of low probability of error (i.e., failure of marking true edges), accuracy, and consistent response to a single edge, continue to persist. Moreover, it should be pointed out that most of the work in the area of feature extraction has been focused on improving many of the existing approaches rather than devising or adopting new ones. In the image processing subfield, where the needs constantly change, we must equally change the way we think. In this digital world where the use of images, for variety of purposes, continues to increase, researchers, if they are serious about addressing the aforementioned limitations, must be able to think outside the box and step away from the usual in order to overcome these challenges. In this dissertation, we propose an adaptive and robust, yet simple, digital image features detection methodology using bidimensional empirical mode decomposition (BEMD), a sifting process that decomposes a signal into its two-dimensional (2D) bidimensional intrinsic mode functions (BIMFs). The method is further extended to detect corners and curves, and as such, dubbed as BEMDEC, indicating its ability to detect edges, corners and curves. In addition to the application of BEMD, a unique combination of a flexible envelope estimation algorithm, stopping criteria and boundary adjustment made the realization of this multi-feature detector possible. Further application of two morphological operators of binarization and thinning adds to the quality of the operator