Ubiquitous Integration and Temporal Synchronisation (UbilTS) framework : a solution for building complex multimodal data capture and interactive systems

Contemporary Data Capture and Interactive Systems (DCIS) systems are tied in with various technical complexities such as multimodal data types, diverse hardware and software components, time synchronisation issues and distributed deployment configurations. Building these systems is inherently difficult and requires addressing of these complexities before the intended and purposeful functionalities can be attained. The technical issues are often common and similar among diverse applications. This thesis presents the Ubiquitous Integration and Temporal Synchronisation (UbiITS) framework, a generic solution to address the technical complexities in building DCISs. The proposed solution is an abstract software framework that can be extended and customised to any application requirements. UbiITS includes all fundamental software components, techniques, system level layer abstractions and reference architecture as a collection to enable the systematic construction of complex DCISs. This work details four case studies to showcase the versatility and extensibility of UbiITS framework’s functionalities and demonstrate how it was employed to successfully solve a range of technical requirements. In each case UbiITS operated as the core element of each application. Additionally, these case studies are novel systems by themselves in each of their domains. Longstanding technical issues such as flexibly integrating and interoperating multimodal tools, precise time synchronisation, etc., were resolved in each application by employing UbiITS. The framework enabled establishing a functional system infrastructure in these cases, essentially opening up new lines of research in each discipline where these research approaches would not have been possible without the infrastructure provided by the framework. The thesis further presents a sample implementation of the framework on a device firmware exhibiting its capability to be directly implemented on a hardware platform. Summary metrics are also produced to establish the complexity, reusability, extendibility, implementation and maintainability characteristics of the framework.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grants - EP/F02553X/1, 114433 and 11394

Digital built Britain: level 3 building information modelling - strategic plan

[Ministerial Foreword] Construction is a sector where Britain has a strong competitive edge. We have world class capability in architecture, design and engineering and British companies are leading the way in delivering sustainable construction solutions. It is also a sector with considerable growth opportunities with the global construction sector forecast to grow by up to 70% by 2025. We are not starting from scratch. The Government in collaboration with industry has already committed to the Level 2 BIM programme as well as investing £220M in the development of a High Performance Computing programme and over £650M in the delivery of transformational high speed Broadband across the UK by 2015. We have a recent track record of world class construction deliveries such as the 2012 Olympics and Crossrail the largest construction project in Europe now reaching the half-way point. We have seen the global reaction to our Level 2 BIM programme’s successful delivery and significant cost savings which have greatly assisted the construction costs savings of £840M in 2013/4, with several major EU nations including France and Germany announcing similar BIM programmes. If we want to retain our strength in this economy we cannot stand by. We need concerted joint action from Government, Industry and Academia working in partnership toward the success of the sector and ensuring that benefits are felt across the rest of the economy. The Information Economy is transforming the way we live and work. It is crucial to our success on the global stage and to facing the challenges of urbanisation and globalisation that we grasp the opportunity that Digital Built Britain presents. [RT Hon Dr Vince Cable MP - Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade

The challenges of using biodata in promotional filmmaking

We present a study of how filmmakers collected and visualised physiological data---'biodata'---to construct a series of short promotional films depicting people undergoing 'thrilling' experiences. Drawing on ethnographic studies of two major advertising campaigns, we highlight key concerns for integrating sensors and sensor data into film production. Our findings address the perceived benefits of using biodata within narratives; the nature of different on-screen representations of biodata; and the challenges presented when integrating biodata into production processes. Drawing on this, we reconsider the nature of information visualisation in the filmmaking context. Further implications from our case studies provide recommendations for HCI collaborations with filmmaking and broadcast industries, focussing both on the practical matters of fitting sensor technologies into and handling data within production workflows, as well as discussing the broader implications for managing the veracity of that data within professional media production

Extending Provenance For Deep Diagnosis Of Distributed Systems

Diagnosing and repairing problems in complex distributed systems has always been challenging. A wide variety of problems can happen in distributed systems: routers can be misconfigured, nodes can be hacked, and the control software can have bugs. This is further complicated by the complexity and scale of today’s distributed systems. Provenance is an attractive way to diagnose faults in distributed systems, because it can track the causality from a symptom to a set of root causes. Prior work on network provenance has successfully applied provenance to distributed systems. However, they cannot explain problems beyond the presence of faulty events and offer limited help with finding repairs. In this dissertation, we extend provenance to handle diagnostics problems that require deeper investigations. We propose three different extensions: negative provenance explains not just the presence but also the absence of events (such as missing packets); meta provenance can suggest repairs by tracking causality not only for data but also for code (such as bugs in control plane programs); temporal provenance tracks causality at the temporal level and aims at diagnosing timing-related faults (such as slow requests). Compared to classical network provenance, our approach tracks richer causality at runtime and applies more sophisticated reasoning and post-processing. We apply the above techniques to software-defined networking and the border gateway protocol. Evaluations with real world traffic and topology show that our systems can diagnose and repair practical problems, and that the runtime overhead as well as the query turnarounds are reasonable