6 research outputs found
Introduction to the special issue on the 50th anniversary of IJHCS
This special issue celebrates the 50th anniversary of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS), which published its first volume in January 1969. The special issue comprises 15 contributions from a number of experts in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and other areas relevant to IJHCS. These contributions are best characterized as ‘landscape papers’, providing insightful analyses about the evolution (i.e., the past, the present and the future) of research areas relevant to IJHCS. The areas covered in this special issue include: the history and scope of the journal; foundational concerns in HCI; critical discussions about the issues surrounding digital living in a variety of areas, from healthcare and cybersecurity to digital games and art; the making of interactive products and services, as seen through the viewpoints defined by research in psychology of programming, end-user development and participatory design; and, finally, the issues associated with adapting to various novel emerging technologies, including automated systems, online personalisation, human augmentations, mixed reality, and sonic interfaces. In this short essay, we introduce the special issue, reflecting on the nature and evolution of the journal, before providing short outlines of each of the contributions to this special issue
Introduction to the Special Issue on the 50th Anniversary of IJHCS
This special issue celebrates the 50th anniversary of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS), which published its first volume in January 1969. The special issue comprises 15 contributions from a number of experts in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and other areas relevant to IJHCS. These contributions are best characterized as ‘landscape papers’, providing insightful analyses about the evolution (i.e., the past, the present and the future) of research areas relevant to IJHCS. The areas covered in this special issue include: the history and scope of the journal; foundational concerns in HCI; critical discussions about the issues surrounding digital living in a variety of areas, from healthcare and cybersecurity to digital games and art; the making of interactive products and services, as seen through the viewpoints defined by research in psychology of programming, end-user development and participatory design; and, finally, the issues associated with adapting to various novel emerging technologies, including automated systems, online personalisation, human augmentations, mixed reality, and sonic interfaces. In this short essay, we introduce the special issue, reflecting on the nature and evolution of the journal, before providing short outlines of each of the contributions to this special issue
Block-Based Development of Mobile Learning Experiences for the Internet of Things
The Internet of Things enables experts of given domains to create smart user experiences for interacting with the environment. However, development of such experiences requires strong programming skills, which are challenging to develop for non-technical users. This paper presents several extensions to the block-based programming language used in App Inventor to make the creation of mobile apps for smart learning experiences less challenging. Such apps are used to process and graphically represent data streams from sensors by applying map-reduce operations. A workshop with students without previous experience with Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile app programming was conducted to evaluate the propositions. As a result, students were able to create small IoT apps that ingest, process and visually represent data in a simpler form as using App Inventor's standard features. Besides, an experimental study was carried out in a mobile app development course with academics of diverse disciplines. Results showed it was faster and easier for novice programmers to develop the proposed app using new stream processing blocks.Spanish National Research Agency (AEI) - ERDF fund
Enabling End-User Development in Smart Homes: A Machine Learning-Powered Digital Twin for Energy Efficient Management
End-User Development has been proposed over the years to allow end users to control and manage their Internet of Things-based environments, such as smart homes. With End-User Development, end users are able to create trigger-action rules or routines to tailor the behavior of their smart homes. However, the scientific research proposed to date does not encompass methods that evaluate the suitability of user-created routines in terms of energy consumption. This paper proposes using Machine Learning to build a Digital Twin of a smart home that can predict the energy consumption of smart appliances. The Digital Twin will allow end users to simulate possible scenarios related to the creation of routines. Simulations will be used to assess the effects of the activation of appliances involved in the routines under creation and possibly modify them to save energy consumption according to the Digital Twin’s suggestions
Streamlining Knowledge Graph Construction with a fa\c{c}ade: The SPARQL Anything project
What should a data integration framework for knowledge engineers look like?
Recent research on Knowledge Graph construction proposes the design of a
fa\c{c}ade, a notion borrowed from object-oriented software engineering. This
idea is applied to SPARQL Anything, a system that allows querying heterogeneous
resources as-if they were in RDF, in plain SPARQL 1.1, by overloading the
SERVICE clause. SPARQL Anything supports a wide variety of file formats, from
popular ones (CSV, JSON, XML, Spreadsheets) to others that are not supported by
alternative solutions (Markdown, YAML, DOCx, Bibtex). Features include querying
Web APIs with high flexibility, parametrised queries, and chaining multiple
transformations into complex pipelines. In this paper, we describe the design
rationale and software architecture of the SPARQL Anything system. We provide
references to an extensive set of reusable, real-world scenarios from various
application domains. We report on the value-to-users of the founding
assumptions of its design, compared to alternative solutions through a
community survey and a field report from the industry.Comment: 15 page
Development of the web-based data-driven university information management system (UIMS) for inter-university council for east Africa
A Project Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Award the Degree of Master of Science in Embedded and Mobile Systems of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyA significant challenge faced by the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) is the
lack of a common Higher Education Information System (HEIS) for the East African
Community (EAC) to harmonize the region's education and training system. The system has to
manage data about the academic program, universities, research, and human capital
respectively developed in different modules. Both EAC's citizens and IUCEA need statistics
regarding this information and complex questions these data may answer. Traditional high
education management is not only costly but also ineffective. In this work, a web-based data driven University Information Management system (UIMS) for IUCEA is designed to
effectively manage university information concerning the academic life cycle, assets, finance,
and human resource. In addition, a university application portal to help high education
institutions is provided to apply for being among all degrees awarding high education. This
system is the second module of the East Africa Community High Education Information
System (EAC HEIS); it has been developed using agile software development and web
technology such as RESTful API, React, Django, and MySQL. UIMS for IUCEA will
significantly impact the IUCEA's day-to-day operation and receive recognition from the surfer.
It will improve the efficiency of many processes