Trends on engineering interactive systems: an overview of works presented in workshops at EICS 2019

Workshops are a great opportunity for identifying innovative topics of research that might require discussion and maturation. This paper summarizes the outcomes of the workshops track of the 11th Engineering Interactive Computing Systems conference (EICS 2019), held in Valencia (Spain) on 18-21 June 2019. The track featured three workshops, one half-day, one full-day and one two-days workshop, each focused on specific topics of the ongoing research in engineering usable and effective interactive computing systems. In particular, the list of discussed topics include novel forms of interaction and emerging themes in HCI related to new application domains, more efficient and enjoyable interaction possibilities associated to smart objects and smart environments, challenges faced in designing, developing and using interactive systems involving multiple stakeholders.- (undefined

Implementation of Interactive Whiteboards by High School Mathematics Teachers: Case Studies of Change

The purpose of this study was to assess how mathematics teachers with varying years of Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) experience differ in their implementation of IWBs. The theoretical frameworks were constructivism and change theory. Six teachers participated in the full scale study, two in each IWB experience category: Beginner, Intermediate, and Experienced. Instruments of the Concerns Based Adoption Model were used to collect data about the participants: the Stages of Concern Questionnaire measured participants\u27 concerns about IWBs (George, Hall, & Stiegelbauer, 2006) while the Levels of Use Interview Protocol analyzed IWB usage (Hall, Dirksen, & George, 2006). Two lessons of each participant were also video-recorded and analyzed according to the guidelines of Glover, Miller, Averis, and Door (2007). A mixed methods case study approach was utilized to compare the IWB users within and between groups. Quantitative analyses of the Stages of Concern Questionnaire indicated that IWB experience does influence concerns; teachers with more IWB experience generally reported higher Stages of Concern than less experienced IWB users. Effective collaboration with an Experienced IWB user, however, can greatly improve the concerns of a Beginner IWB user. Qualitative analyses of the Levels of Use interviews and the video-recorded lessons indicated that IWB experience does impact usage during lessons. In general, more experienced IWB users demonstrated greater knowledge about IWB features and how to integrate them into lessons to improve student learning. Again, effective collaboration with an Experienced IWB user appeared to improve the performance of a Beginner IWB user compared to other, less experienced IWB users. Collaborations between similarly experienced participants who shared time management concerns did not seem to have as much of an impact on IWB knowledge. Based on the findings of this study, the following efforts should be pursued to maximize the benefits of IWB technology in mathematics classrooms: encourage collaboration, provide full-time access to IWB technology, use IWBs with other technologies, ensure adequate training, and properly install the IWB\u27s projector to reduce recalibration needs

An Autobiography of a Digital Idea: From Waging War against Laptops to Engaging Students with Laptops

This is an autobiographical account of my attempt to bridge the digital divide to meet students\u27 changing needs. When I first began teaching at Georgetown University Law Center in 1993, I employed many traditional teaching techniques and used printed textbooks. However, laptops soon began peppering my classroom; at first there were only a few, and then suddenly almost every student was hiding behind a laptop. I noticed that my students were looking down at their screens, typing furiously, instead of watching me while I discussed my material written on the blackboard or projected overhead. When I realized that I was teaching to eyebrows instead of engaging my students eye-to-eye, I concluded that the traditional teaching methods were no longer effective. In 1999, I decided to research the mindset of these new learners, to overhaul my teaching methods and ultimately to create an interactive, electronic book that could sit conveniently on those laptops in the classroom

Integrating Automatic Transcription into the Language Documentation Workflow: Experiments with Na Data and the Persephone Toolkit

Automatic speech recognition tools have potential for facilitating language documentation, but in practice these tools remain little-used by linguists for a variety of reasons, such as that the technology is still new (and evolving rapidly), user-friendly interfaces are still under development, and case studies demonstrating the practical usefulness of automatic recognition in a low-resource setting remain few. This article reports on a success story in integrating automatic transcription into the language documentation workflow, specifically for Yongning Na, a language of Southwest China. Using Persephone, an open-source toolkit, a single-speaker speech transcription tool was trained over five hours of manually transcribed speech. The experiments found that this method can achieve a remarkably low error rate (on the order of 17%), and that automatic transcriptions were useful as a canvas for the linguist. The present report is intended for linguists with little or no knowledge of speech processing. It aims to provide insights into (i) the way the tool operates and (ii) the process of collaborating with natural language processing specialists. Practical recommendations are offered on how to anticipate the requirements of this type of technology from the early stages of data collection in the field.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

An adaptive environment for personal information management

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This dissertation reports the results of research into the provision of adaptive user interfaces to support individuals in the management of their personal information. Many individuals find that they have increased responsibility for managing aspects of their own lives, including the information associated with their jobs. In contrast with traditional approaches to information management, which are generally driven by organisational or business requirements, the requirements of personal information management systems tend to be less rigidly defined. This dissertation employs research from the areas of personal information management and adaptive user interfaces - systems which can monitor how they are used, and adapt on a personal level to their user - to address some of the particular requirements of personal information management systems. An adaptive user interface can be implemented using a variety of techniques, and this dissertation draws on research from the area of software agents to suggest that reactive software agents can be fruitfully applied to realise the required adaptivity. The reactive approach is then used in the specification and development of an adaptive interface which supports simple elements of personal information management tasks. The resulting application is evaluated by means of user trials and a usability inspection, and the theoretical architectures and techniques used in the specification and development of the software are critically appraised. The dissertation demonstrates an application of reactive software agents in adaptive systems design and shows how the behaviour of the system can be specified based on the analysis of some representative personal information management tasks.EPSRC (Award Reference Number 95700906

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION WITH PHYSIOLOGICAL SENSORS. THE AESTHETIC DOMAIN OF WEARABLES AND NEURAL NETWORKS

Historically, communication implies the transfer of information between bodies, yet this phenomenon is constantly adapting to new technological and cultural standards. In a digital context, it’s commonplace to envision systems that revolve around verbal modalities. However, behavioural analysis grounded in psychology research calls attention to the emotional information disclosed by non-verbal social cues, in particular, actions that are involuntary. This notion has circulated heavily into various interdisciplinary computing research fields, from which multiple studies have arisen, correlating non-verbal activity to socio-affective inferences. These are often derived from some form of motion capture and other wearable sensors, measuring the ‘invisible’ bioelectrical changes that occur from inside the body. This thesis proposes a motivation and methodology for using physiological sensory data as an expressive resource for technology-mediated interactions. Initialised from a thorough discussion on state-of-the-art technologies and established design principles regarding this topic, then applied to a novel approach alongside a selection of practice works to compliment this. We advocate for aesthetic experience, experimenting with abstract representations. Atypically from prevailing Affective Computing systems, the intention is not to infer or classify emotion but rather to create new opportunities for rich gestural exchange, unconfined to the verbal domain. Given the preliminary proposition of non-representation, we justify a correspondence with modern Machine Learning and multimedia interaction strategies, applying an iterative, human-centred approach to improve personalisation without the compromising emotional potential of bodily gesture. Where related studies in the past have successfully provoked strong design concepts through innovative fabrications, these are typically limited to simple linear, one-to-one mappings and often neglect multi-user environments; we foresee a vast potential. In our use cases, we adopt neural network architectures to generate highly granular biofeedback from low-dimensional input data. We present the following proof-of-concepts: Breathing Correspondence, a wearable biofeedback system inspired by Somaesthetic design principles; Latent Steps, a real-time auto-encoder to represent bodily experiences from sensor data, designed for dance performance; and Anti-Social Distancing Ensemble, an installation for public space interventions, analysing physical distance to generate a collective soundscape. Key findings are extracted from the individual reports to formulate an extensive technical and theoretical framework around this topic. The projects first aim to embrace some alternative perspectives already established within Affective Computing research. From here, these concepts evolve deeper, bridging theories from contemporary creative and technical practices with the advancement of biomedical technologies.Historicamente, os processos de comunicação implicam a transferência de informação entre organismos, mas este fenómeno está constantemente a adaptar-se a novos padrões tecnológicos e culturais. Num contexto digital, é comum encontrar sistemas que giram em torno de modalidades verbais. Contudo, a análise comportamental fundamentada na investigação psicológica chama a atenção para a informação emocional revelada por sinais sociais não verbais, em particular, acções que são involuntárias. Esta noção circulou fortemente em vários campos interdisciplinares de investigação na área das ciências da computação, dos quais surgiram múltiplos estudos, correlacionando a actividade nãoverbal com inferências sócio-afectivas. Estes são frequentemente derivados de alguma forma de captura de movimento e sensores “wearable”, medindo as alterações bioeléctricas “invisíveis” que ocorrem no interior do corpo. Nesta tese, propomos uma motivação e metodologia para a utilização de dados sensoriais fisiológicos como um recurso expressivo para interacções mediadas pela tecnologia. Iniciada a partir de uma discussão aprofundada sobre tecnologias de ponta e princípios de concepção estabelecidos relativamente a este tópico, depois aplicada a uma nova abordagem, juntamente com uma selecção de trabalhos práticos, para complementar esta. Defendemos a experiência estética, experimentando com representações abstractas. Contrariamente aos sistemas de Computação Afectiva predominantes, a intenção não é inferir ou classificar a emoção, mas sim criar novas oportunidades para uma rica troca gestual, não confinada ao domínio verbal. Dada a proposta preliminar de não representação, justificamos uma correspondência com estratégias modernas de Machine Learning e interacção multimédia, aplicando uma abordagem iterativa e centrada no ser humano para melhorar a personalização sem o potencial emocional comprometedor do gesto corporal. Nos casos em que estudos anteriores demonstraram com sucesso conceitos de design fortes através de fabricações inovadoras, estes limitam-se tipicamente a simples mapeamentos lineares, um-para-um, e muitas vezes negligenciam ambientes multi-utilizadores; com este trabalho, prevemos um potencial alargado. Nos nossos casos de utilização, adoptamos arquitecturas de redes neurais para gerar biofeedback altamente granular a partir de dados de entrada de baixa dimensão. Apresentamos as seguintes provas de conceitos: Breathing Correspondence, um sistema de biofeedback wearable inspirado nos princípios de design somaestético; Latent Steps, um modelo autoencoder em tempo real para representar experiências corporais a partir de dados de sensores, concebido para desempenho de dança; e Anti-Social Distancing Ensemble, uma instalação para intervenções no espaço público, analisando a distância física para gerar uma paisagem sonora colectiva. Os principais resultados são extraídos dos relatórios individuais, para formular um quadro técnico e teórico alargado para expandir sobre este tópico. Os projectos têm como primeiro objectivo abraçar algumas perspectivas alternativas às que já estão estabelecidas no âmbito da investigação da Computação Afectiva. A partir daqui, estes conceitos evoluem mais profundamente, fazendo a ponte entre as teorias das práticas criativas e técnicas contemporâneas com o avanço das tecnologias biomédicas