Ambient intelligence and affective computing: a contribute to energetic sustainability

Tese de Doutoramento em Informática.economy and the citizen behaviours are putting stress on resources at increasing scales. Society demands sustainable solutions for these problems. However, these solutions need to compromise restrictions enforced by either society, physics and resources. This leads to the traditional dimensions of sustainability: economic, environmental and social, which need to be addressed as a whole in order to find sustainable configurations. Although not as old as sustainability itself, computational sustainability provides methods to specify and intervene in sustainability problems. The most used approaches to computational sustainability systems target constraint conditions, computer simulation and machine learning to solve sustainability problems. Computer science can leverage computational sustainability to acquire relevant information from environment and users, plan and predict approaches to problems and act upon physical systems. This thesis presents an archetype platform, the People Help Energy Savings and Sustainability (PHESS), which results from experiments upon computational sustainability problems with the aid of action-research methodology. It is aimed at intelligent environments such as smart cites and ambient assisted living, and makes use of ubiquitous technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and pervasive computing. More than just measuring and reporting tool, the archetype aims to promote behavioural change and continuous improvement through techniques taken from fields such as intelligent environments, gamification and affective computing which help improve sustainability scenarios. This archetype enabled the implementation of case studies where the platform was used to assess energy consumption to manage and monitor user environments, user comfort and urban transportation to demonstrate the adaptability of the archetype to different kinds of scenarios.A sociedade depara-se, muitas vezes, com problemas de sustentabilidade. É um facto que a evolução económica e os comportamentos dos cidadãos estão a colocar pressão sobre os recursos naturais numa escala cada vez maior. A sociedade exige soluções sustentáveis para estes problemas. No entanto, estas soluções devem harmonizar restrições impostas pela sociedade, a física e os recursos. Estes fatores conduzem às dimensões tradicionais da sustentabilidade: económica, ambiental e social, que precisam ser tratadas como um todo, com o intuito de encontrar configurações sustentáveis. Embora não tão antiga quanto a própria sustentabilidade, a sustentabilidade computacional fornece métodos para especificar e intervir nos problemas de sustentabilidade. As abordagens mais usadas para sistemas computacionais de sustentabilidade abordam restrição de condições, simulação por computador e aprendizagem máquina para resolver problemas de sustentabilidade. A ciência da computação pode melhorar o desempenho da sustentabilidade computacional através da criação de informação relevante a partir do ambiente e seus utilizadores, planear e prever abordagens para os problemas e agir sobre sistemas físicos. Esta tese de doutoramento apresenta um arquétipo, o Pessoas Ajudam na Economia de Energia e na Sustentabilidade (PHESS People Help Energy Savings and Sustainability), que é o resultado de experiências sobre problemas de sustentabilidade computacional com o aUXIlio da metodologia de action-research. É destinada a ambientes inteligentes, como por exemplo cidades inteligentes e ambientes de vida assistida e faz uso de tecnologias ubíquas, tais como a Internet das Coisas (IoT - Internet of Things) e computação pervasiva. Mais do que apenas medir e elaborar relatórios, o arquétipo tem como objetivo promover a mudança de comportamentos e a melhoria contínua através de técnicas de ramos como ambientes inteligentes, gamification e computação afetiva que ajudam a melhorar cenários de sustentabilidade. Este arquétipo possibilitou a implementação de diversos casos de estudo onde a plataforma foi usada para gerir e monitorizar ambientes e utilizadores, o conforto dos utilizadores e transportes urbanos, para demonstrar a capacidade de adaptação do arquétipo a diferentes cenários reais

Machine intelligence sports as research programs

Games and competitions have played a significant role throughout the history of artificial intelligence and robotics. Machine intelligence games are examined here from a distinctive methodological perspective, focusing on their use as generators of multidisciplinary research programs. In particular, Robocup is analyzed as an exemplary case of contemporary research program developing from machine intelligence games. These research programs arising are schematized in terms of framework building, subgoaling, and outcome appraisal processes. The latter process is found to involve a rather intricate system of rewards and penalties, which take into account the double allegiance of participating scientists, trading and sharing interchanges taking place in a multidisciplinary research environment, in addition to expected industrial payoffs and a variety of other fringe research benefits in the way of research outreach and results dissemination, recruitment of junior researchers and students enrollment

Traffic expression through ubiquitous and pervasive sensorization - smart cities and assessment of driving behaviour

The number of portable and wearable devices has been increasing in the population of most developed countries. Meanwhile, the capacity to monitor and register not only data about people’s habits and locations but also more complex data such as intensity and strength of movements has created an opportunity to their contribution to the general wealth and sustainability of environments. Ambient Intelligence and Intelligent Decision Making processes can benefit from the knowledge gathered by these devices to improve decisions on everyday tasks such as planning navigation routes by car, bicycle or other means of transportation and avoiding route perils. Current applications in this area demonstrate the usefulness of real time system that inform the user of conditions in the surrounding area. Nevertheless, the approach in this work aims to describe models and approaches to automatically identify current states of traffic inside cities and relate such information with knowledge obtained from historical data recovered by ubiquitous and pervasive devices. Such objective is delivered by analysing real time contributions from those devices and identifying hazardous situations and problematic sites under defined criteria that has significant influence towards user well-being, economic and environmental aspects, as defined is the sustainability definition

A Review of Digital Twins and their Application in Cybersecurity based on Artificial Intelligence

The potential of digital twin technology is yet to be fully realized due to its diversity and untapped potential. Digital twins enable systems' analysis, design, optimization, and evolution to be performed digitally or in conjunction with a cyber-physical approach to improve speed, accuracy, and efficiency over traditional engineering methods. Industry 4.0, factories of the future, and digital twins continue to benefit from the technology and provide enhanced efficiency within existing systems. Due to the lack of information and security standards associated with the transition to cyber digitization, cybercriminals have been able to take advantage of the situation. Access to a digital twin of a product or service is equivalent to threatening the entire collection. There is a robust interaction between digital twins and artificial intelligence tools, which leads to strong interaction between these technologies, so it can be used to improve the cybersecurity of these digital platforms based on their integration with these technologies. This study aims to investigate the role of artificial intelligence in providing cybersecurity for digital twin versions of various industries, as well as the risks associated with these versions. In addition, this research serves as a road map for researchers and others interested in cybersecurity and digital security.Comment: 60 pages, 8 Figures, 15 Table

Playing it safe : A literature review and research agenda on motivational technologies in transportation safety

While motivation affects safety-related decision-making and human reliability, technologies to promote it are scarcely used. We have only recently witnessed how motivational technologies, including serious games, gamification, and persuasive technologies have emerged on the palette of methods for enhancing transportation safety. However, the research on these technologies for transportation safety is fragmented, preventing future studies and practical efforts. This paper describes the state-of-the-art through a systematic review to address this issue. Analyzing 62 studies, we perceive that motivational technologies focus on reducing the accident likelihood and mitigating their consequences. While these technologies can induce positive psychological change and improve learning, the evidence of behavioral change is mainly limited to simulation settings, lacking examination of the long-term benefits and potential adverse effects. Our results highlight the importance of aligning motivational design with the cognitive demand of the transportation task and the means for improving safety. Future research should explore how motivational technologies can enhance safety from the system design perspective, cover a broader scope of transportation modes, compare their effects to conventional approaches while considering social aspects in their design and evaluation. Beside providing an overview of the area and future directions, this paper also introduces design recommendations to guide practitioners.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

A New Concept of Digital Twin Supporting Optimization and Resilience of Factories of the Future

In the context of Industry 4.0, a growing use is being made of simulation-based decision-support tools commonly named Digital Twins. Digital Twins are replicas of the physical manufacturing assets, providing means for the monitoring and control of individual assets. Although extensive research on Digital Twins and their applications has been carried out, the majority of existing approaches are asset specific. Little consideration is made of human factors and interdependencies between different production assets are commonly ignored. In this paper, we address those limitations and propose innovations for cognitive modeling and co-simulation which may unleash novel uses of Digital Twins in Factories of the Future. We introduce a holistic Digital Twin approach, in which the factory is not represented by a set of separated Digital Twins but by a comprehensive modeling and simulation capacity embracing the full manufacturing process including external network dependencies. Furthermore, we introduce novel approaches for integrating models of human behavior and capacities for security testing with Digital Twins and show how the holistic Digital Twin can enable new services for the optimization and resilience of Factories of the Future. To illustrate this approach, we introduce a specific use-case implemented in field of Aerospace System Manufacturing.The present work was developed under the EUREKA–ITEA3 Project CyberFactory#1 (ITEA-17032), co-funded by Project CyberFactory#1PT (ANI|P2020 40124), from FEDER Funds through NORTE2020 program and from National Funds through FCT under the project UID/EEA/00760/2019 and by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Germany, funding No. 01IS18061C).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Towards Human Digital Twins for Improving Customer Experience

Applications of digital twin (DT) technology have gained momentum in IS research and cognate disciplines. Several studies have documented how DTs create value in contexts such as manufacturing or smart cities through virtual monitoring and decision-making. While these contexts benefit from DTs of products or production steps, this research is the first to investigate the potentials of human DTs to improve customer experience (CX) (i.e., customer twins). Drawing on a structured literature review, we derive new conceptualizations of DTs as (i) virtual mirrors that depict a physical entity and its interactions in virtual space, and (ii) virtual orchestrators which extend the virtual mirror by also simulating potential virtual interactions. These new conceptualizations, by applying them to human DTs, enable us to discuss DT’s implications to approach current CX potentials. The results of the discussion indicate that human DTs can support CX management to improve CX throughout the whole customer journey

Design Principles of Mobile Information Systems in the Digital Transformation of the Workplace - Utilization of Smartwatch-based Information Systems in the Corporate Context

During the last decades, smartwatches emerged as an innovative and promising technology and hit the consumer market due to the accessibility of affordable devices and predominant acceptance caused by the considerable similarity to common wristwatches. With the unique characteristics of permanent availability, unobtrusiveness, and hands-free operation, they can provide additional value in the corporate context. Thus, this thesis analyzes use cases for smartwatches in companies, elaborates on the design of smartwatch-based information systems, and covers the usability of smartwatch applications during the development of smartwatch-based information systems. It is composed of three research complexes. The first research complex focuses on the digital assistance of (mobile) employees who have to execute manual work and have been excluded so far from the benefits of the digitalization since they cannot operate hand-held devices. The objective is to design smartwatch-based information systems to support workflows in the corporate context, facilitate the daily work of numerous employees, and make processes more efficient for companies. During a design science research approach, smartwatch-based software artifacts are designed and evaluated in use cases of production, support, security service, as well as logistics, and a nascent design theory is proposed to complement theory according to mobile information system research. The evaluation shows that, on the one hand, smartwatches have enormous potential to assist employees with a fast and ubiquitous exchange of information, instant notifications, collaboration, and workflow guidance while they can be operated incidentally during manual work. On the other hand, the design of smartwatch-based information systems is a crucial factor for successful long-term deployment in companies, and especially limitations according to the small form-factor, general conditions, acceptance of the employees, and legal regulations have to be addressed appropriately. The second research complex addresses smartwatch-based information systems at the office workplace. This broadens and complements the view on the utilization of smartwatches in the corporate context in addition to the mobile context described in the first research complex. Though smartwatches are devices constructed for mobile use, the utilization in low mobile or stationary scenarios also has benefits due they exhibit the characteristic of a wearable computer and are directly connected to the employee’s body. Various sensors can perceive employee-, environment- and therefore context-related information and demand the employees’ attention with proactive notifications that are accompanied by a vibration. Thus, a smartwatch-based and gamified information system for health promotion at the office workplace is designed and evaluated. Research complex three provides a closer look at the topic of usability concerning applications running on smartwatches since it is a crucial factor during the development cycle. As a supporting element for the studies within the first and second research complex, a framework for the usability analysis of smartwatch applications is developed. For research, this thesis contributes a systemization of the state-of-the-art of smartwatch utilization in the corporate context, enabling and inhibiting influence factors of the smartwatch adoption in companies, and design principles as well as a nascent design theory for smartwatch-based information systems to support mobile employees executing manual work. For practice, this thesis contributes possible use cases for smartwatches in companies, assistance in decision-making for the introduction of smartwatch-based information systems in the corporate context with the Smartwatch Applicability Framework, situated implementations of a smartwatch-based information system for typical use cases, design recommendations for smartwatch-based information systems, an implementation of a smartwatch-based information system for the support of mobile employees executing manual work, and a usability-framework for smartwatches to automatically access usability of existing applications providing suggestions for usability improvement

Beyond the knowledge gap paradigm: the role of psychological empowerment in parents’ vaccination decision

Even though the efficacy and safety of immunization have been widely proven (Plotkin, 2014), an increasing number of parents have refused to vaccinate their children against serious infectious diseases in the past twenty years (Dubé, Gagnon, Nickels, Jeram, & Schuster, 2014). A recent shift in the study of vaccination decision- making has seen scholars moving beyond the idea that mere lack of knowledge could explain why parents decide to opt out of the recommended schedule, showing that making a vaccination decision is a complex cognitive and emotional process where several factors play a role. Variables such as risk perception, anticipated regret or prosocial attitude can potentially contribute to choosing or not choosing a given vaccination (Yaqub, Castle-Clarke, Sevdalis, & Chataway, 2014). The aim of this dissertation, which is based on the Health Empowerment Model (Schulz & Nakamoto, 2013), is to explore and assess the role of vaccination knowledge (as a dimension of vaccination literacy) in parental vaccination decision-making, while studying, at the same time, the implications of parents’ psychological empowerment on the decision about immunizing their child, with a special focus on the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination. Six unique studies that employed both qualitative (individual interviews and focus groups) and quantitative (content analysis, survey and experiment) methods are presented, which aim to assess the influence of vaccination literacy and psychological empowerment on vaccination-related outcomes such as intention, while providing a valid and reliable measurement tool for the empowerment construct as well as a context-specific conceptualization. A content analysis (Chapter II) focusing on the arguments cited by users posting online about vaccination shows that a distinction can be made between an anti-vaccination group, a general pro- vaccination group (using diverse arguments supporting vaccination) and a safety- focused pro-vaccination group. The anti-vaccination group appears to be more active than the others and to also use multiple sources (mainly its own experience and media). The findings of an interview study (Chapter III) reveal that parents tend to misinterpret current vaccination recommendations and experience negative outcomes of their low self-perceived competence. The study also shows that parents think that their MMR vaccination decision can have an impact on different levels and that they have a preference for shared-decision making in relation to their child’s healthcare provider. A second qualitative study employing focus group interviews (Chapter IV) shows that parents are concerned with their legal responsibility and issues of freedom with regards to the MMR vaccination decision. A key finding is that parents’ relationship with the pediatrician in terms of trust is crucial to their self-perceived competence, suggesting their preference for a model of autonomy that does not exclude a shared decision-making approach with the child’s healthcare provider. Finally, a distinction emerges between information seekers, avoiders, and passive recipients. A scale is developed and its psychometric properties are evaluated (Chapter V) to provide a valid and reliable tool to measure psychological empowerment in the vaccination decision. The final tool captures parents’ perceived influence of one’s personal and family experience regarding vaccination, their desire not to ask other parents about their experience with vaccinations and their lack of interest in the vaccination opinion of other parents. These elements can be seen as context-specific extensions of the empowerment dimension of self-determination. The findings of an experimental study (Chapter VI) demonstrate that providing accurate information on the vaccination through a smartphone app employing gamification can positively and significantly increase parents’ knowledge and empowerment. Furthermore, providing information in a gamified way also led to a higher intention to vaccinate and higher parental confidence in the decision. Finally, a mixed method study to evaluate the experiment described above (Chapter VII), suggests that parents have a preference for information and opinions, compared to solely being empowered and pushed to look for information. The results recommend that empowering efforts be always accompanied by proper and exhaustive information. On the basis of these findings, this dissertation contributes to understanding parents’ empowerment needs in the vaccination decision, providing new insights to current research that seeks to study the vaccination decision as a complex process. The results of the studies can significantly inform ways to improve not only communication between health professionals and parents on the vaccination topic, but also future public health strategies and policies ultimately aimed at increasing vaccination coverage

Computer Games for Motor Speech Rehabilitation

This research investigates the problem of creating a system for interactive digital visual feedback of articulator kinematics measures for speech rehabilitation. Recent technology provides precise non-line-of-sight positional tracking of small sensors which affords exploration into the motion of articulators such as the tongue. By utilizing recent game development technology, articulation kinematics can be visualized in realtime. Using these technologies the basis for an interactive rehabilitation system is formed. The system is posed as both a research apparatus and a potential clinical rehabilitation delivery system. As such, this system provides an extensible software and design architecture for the creation of interactive feedback visualizations and kinematic speech metrics as well as a clinical research front end for the creation and delivery of speech motor rehabilitation protocols