Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

Using SCXML to integrate semantic sensor information into context-aware user interfaces

This paper describes a novel architecture to introduce automatic annotation and processing of semantic sensor data within context-aware applications. Based on the well-known state-charts technologies, and represented using W3C SCXML language combined with Semantic Web technologies, our architecture is able to provide enriched higher-level semantic representations of user’s context. This capability to detect and model relevant user situations allows a seamless modeling of the actual interaction situation, which can be integrated during the design of multimodal user interfaces (also based on SCXML) for them to be adequately adapted. Therefore, the final result of this contribution can be described as a flexible context-aware SCXML-based architecture, suitable for both designing a wide range of multimodal context-aware user interfaces, and implementing the automatic enrichment of sensor data, making it available to the entire Semantic Sensor We

Multiple Degrees-Of-Freedom Input Devices for Interactive Command and Control within Virtual Reality in Industrial Visualizations

ABSTRACT The aim of this research is to present a new multimodal interaction mapping framework for 3D object manipulation within the virtual reality (VR) realm, by leveraging the advantages of having multiple DoF (Degree of Freedom). In this new software engineering designed framework, interaction devices such as the keyboard, mouse, joystick, and specialist devices for 3D interactions; the Wing [5] [4] and the 3D connexion spacenavigator, can all be combined to provide a more intuitive and natural interaction command system. This can be applied to many different specific systems including industrial applications within the petroleum, geology and materials sciences

Vocabularies for description of accessibility issues in multimodal user interfaces

In previous work, we proposed a unified approach for describing multimodal human-computer interaction and interaction constraints in terms of sensual, motor, perceptual and cognitive functions of users. In this paper, we extend this work by providing formalised vocabularies that express human functionalities and anatomical structures required by specific modalities. The central theme of our approach is to connect these modality representations with descriptions of user, device and environmental constraints that influence the interaction. These descriptions can then be used in a reasoning framework that will exploit formal connections among interaction modalities and constraints. The focus of this paper is on specifying a comprehensive vocabulary of necessary concepts. Within the context of an interaction framework, we describe a number of examples that use this formalised knowledge

Combining heterogeneous sources in an interactive multimedia content retrieval model

Interactive multimodal information retrieval systems (IMIR) increase the capabilities of traditional search systems, by adding the ability to retrieve information of different types (modes) and from different sources. This article describes a formal model for interactive multimodal information retrieval. This model includes formal and widespread definitions of each component of an IMIR system. A use case that focuses on information retrieval regarding sports validates the model, by developing a prototype that implements a subset of the features of the model. Adaptive techniques applied to the retrieval functionality of IMIR systems have been defined by analysing past interactions using decision trees, neural networks, and clustering techniques. This model includes a strategy for selecting sources and combining the results obtained from every source. After modifying the strategy of the prototype for selecting sources, the system is reevaluated using classification techniques.This work was partially supported by eGovernAbility-Access project (TIN2014-52665-C2-2-R)

Vocabularies for description of accessibility issues in multimodal user interfaces

In previous work, we proposed a unified approach for describing multimodal human-computer interaction and interaction constraints in terms of sensual, motor, perceptual and cognitive functions of users. In this paper, we extend this work by providing formalised vocabularies that express human functionalities and anatomical structures required by specific modalities. The central theme of our approach is to connect these modality representations with descriptions of user, device and environmental constraints that influence the interaction. These descriptions can then be used in a reasoning framework that will exploit formal connections among interaction modalities and constraints. The focus of this paper is on specifying a comprehensive vocabulary of necessary concepts. Within the context of an interaction framework, we describe a number of examples that use this formalised knowledge

User Interface Abstraction for enabling TV set based Inclusive Access to the Information Society

199 p.The television (TV) set is present in most homes worldwide, and is the most used Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Despite its large implantation in the market, the interactive services consumption on TV set is limited. This thesis focuses on overcoming the following limiting factors: (i) limited Human Computer Interaction and (ii) lack of considering user’s real life context in the digital television (dTV) service integration strategy. Making interactive services accessible to TV set’s large user base, and especially to the most vulnerable ones, is understood as the path to integrate the mankind with the information society. This thesis explores the use of user interface abstraction technologies to reach the introduced goals. The main contributions of this thesis are: (i) an approach to enable the universally accessible remote control of the TV set, (ii) an approach for the provision of universally accessible interactive services through TV sets, and (iii) an approach for the provision of universally accessible services in the TV user’s real life context. We have implemented the contributing approaches for different use cases, and we have evaluated them with real users, achieving good results