Accessible museums in Italy: an overview.

The number of people with disabilities is increasing worldwide. The result is the need for their greater involvement in the economy, to build an inclusive society. The cultural sector must also play its role, in a wider project of welcoming tourism. This paper illustrates the evolution and the current situation of accessible museums in Italy, presenting some valid experiences to propose useful benchmarking to public entities, associations, etc. After an adequate review of international literature, a summary of the evolution of the Italian situation is presented, obviously linked to other tourist-cultural initiatives such as museums, natural and archaeological parks, etc. Despite some limitations, Italy, as a privileged international tourist destination, can be a valid reference for many other nations that want to develop accessible cultural tourism

Personalization in cultural heritage: the road travelled and the one ahead

Over the last 20 years, cultural heritage has been a favored domain for personalization research. For years, researchers have experimented with the cutting edge technology of the day; now, with the convergence of internet and wireless technology, and the increasing adoption of the Web as a platform for the publication of information, the visitor is able to exploit cultural heritage material before, during and after the visit, having different goals and requirements in each phase. However, cultural heritage sites have a huge amount of information to present, which must be filtered and personalized in order to enable the individual user to easily access it. Personalization of cultural heritage information requires a system that is able to model the user (e.g., interest, knowledge and other personal characteristics), as well as contextual aspects, select the most appropriate content, and deliver it in the most suitable way. It should be noted that achieving this result is extremely challenging in the case of first-time users, such as tourists who visit a cultural heritage site for the first time (and maybe the only time in their life). In addition, as tourism is a social activity, adapting to the individual is not enough because groups and communities have to be modeled and supported as well, taking into account their mutual interests, previous mutual experience, and requirements. How to model and represent the user(s) and the context of the visit and how to reason with regard to the information that is available are the challenges faced by researchers in personalization of cultural heritage. Notwithstanding the effort invested so far, a definite solution is far from being reached, mainly because new technology and new aspects of personalization are constantly being introduced. This article surveys the research in this area. Starting from the earlier systems, which presented cultural heritage information in kiosks, it summarizes the evolution of personalization techniques in museum web sites, virtual collections and mobile guides, until recent extension of cultural heritage toward the semantic and social web. The paper concludes with current challenges and points out areas where future research is needed

USER INTERFACES FOR MOBILE DEVICES: TECHNIQUES AND CASE STUDIES

The interactive capabilities of portable devices that are nowadays increasingly available, enable mobile computing in diverse contexts. However, in order to fully exploit the potentialities of such technologies and to let end users benefit from them, effective and usable techniques are still needed. In general, differences in capabilities, such as computational power and interaction resources, lead to an heterogeneity that is sometimes positively referred to as device diversity but also, negatively, as device fragmentation. When designing applications for mobile devices, besides general rules and principles of usability, developers cope with further constraints. Restricted capabilities, due to display size, input modality and computational power, imply important design and implementation choices in order to guarantee usability. In addition, when the application is likely to be used by subjects affected by some impairment, the system has also to comply with accessibility requirements. The aim of this dissertation is to propose and discuss examples of such techniques, aimed to support user interfaces on mobile devices, by tackling design, development and evaluation of specific solutions for portable terminals as well as for enabling interoperability across diverse devices (including desktops, handhelds, smartphones). Usefulness and usability aspects are taken into great consideration by the main research questions that drove the activities of the study. With respect the such questions, the three central chapters of the dissertation are respectively aimed at evaluating: hardware/software solutions for edutainment and accessibility in mobile museum guides, visualization strategies for mobile users visiting smart environments, and techniques for user interface migration across diverse devices in multi-user contexts. Motivations, design, implementation and evaluation about a number of solutions aimed to support several dimensions of user interfaces for mobile devices are widely discussed throughout the dissertation, and some findings are drawn. Each one of the prototypes described in the following chapters has been entirely developed within the research activities of the laboratory where the author performed his PhD. Most activities were related to tasks of international research projects and the organization of this dissertation reflects their evolution chronology

Advanced Location-Based Technologies and Services

Since the publication of the first edition in 2004, advances in mobile devices, positioning sensors, WiFi fingerprinting, and wireless communications, among others, have paved the way for developing new and advanced location-based services (LBSs). This second edition provides up-to-date information on LBSs, including WiFi fingerprinting, mobile computing, geospatial clouds, geospatial data mining, location privacy, and location-based social networking. It also includes new chapters on application areas such as LBSs for public health, indoor navigation, and advertising. In addition, the chapter on remote sensing has been revised to address advancements

Evaluación de introducción de Internet de objetos en espacios de aprendizaje

La necesidad de aprendizaje es innata en cada ser humano, cada día estamos inmersos en un proceso de aprendizaje ya sea formal o informal. Dentro del esfuerzo de la comunidad acad´emica, el usar herramientas de carácter tecnológico ha sido una actividad permanente. En este momento el avance progresivo de las tecnologías y redes móviles habilita nuevas herramientas para ser exploradas y experimentadas en escenarios de aprendizaje. Es así como el uso de dispositivos móviles añade nuevas dimensiones como la movilidad y personalización, la evolución de los componentes de E-Learning para el aprendizaje móvil y aprendizaje ubicuo, abre el espacio conceptual y técnico para el desarrollo de la Internet de objetos (IOT, de sus siglas en inglés de Internet of Things) en el aprendizaje. Esta tesis está inspirada en la necesidad de mejorar el aprendizaje y la necesidad de explorar y aplicar los actuales avances en materia de lo que se ha enmarcado como Internet de Objetos. El objetivo central de este trabajo, es la evaluación de actividades de aprendizaje utilizando Internet de Objetos, para ello se hace necesario el estudio, implementación y demostración de cómo las tecnologías y conceptos de Internet de Objetos, pueden modificar el entorno convencional de aprendizaje y crear nuevos entornos hasta ahora no contemplados. Es así como se proponen: el “modelo de introducción de Internet de Objetos”, el cual corresponde a una propuesta conceptual sobre la visión de Internet de Objetos a la que se quiere llegar y el “entorno de soporte de Internet de Objetos” consistente en una propuesta tecnológica, que involucra el desarrollo de una serie de aplicaciones y sistemas basados en la exploración y habilitación técnica de los escenarios planteados bajo el modelo conceptual. Como parte de la experimentación, se tiene la puesta en práctica del modelo teórico planteado, bajo la utilización de las herramientas desarrolladas en la propuesta tecnológica. Para ello, dentro de clases reales en tres Universidades, en tres ciudades diferentes en España y Colombia, se llevaron a cabo diversas experiencias introduciendo los escenarios y haciendo uso de las herramientas. Se desarrolló un patrón de evaluación de estas experiencias para tener en cuenta su diseño, resultados experimentales y mediciones de carácter estadístico descriptivo e inferencial. Los resultados han evidenciado que aun bajo diferentes contextos culturales, los grupos de estudiantes muestran presencia de aprendizaje usando herramientas de Internet de Objetos y los resultados de los estudiantes son equivalentes o en algunos casos mejores que los de los demás grupos.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The need of learning is innate in human being, every day we are involved a learning process whether formal or informal. Within the academic community effort, the use of technological tools has been an ongoing activity. At this point the advances of mobile network technologies and new tools enable to explore and experiment in learning scenarios. Thus, use of mobile devices adds new dimensions such as mobility and personalization, the evolution of E-Learning components for mobile learning and ubiquitous learning, open the conceptual and technical development of the Internet of objects (IOT) in learning. This thesis is inspired by the need to improve learning and the need to explore and implement the current developments about the Internet of Objects. The main objective of this study is the evaluation of learning activities using the Internet of Objects; it is necessary for the study, implementation and demonstration of how IOT technologies and concepts can affect the traditional learning environment and create new environments so far not covered. In this way is how it´s propose: the “model for introducing IOT", which corresponds to a conceptual vision to reach and the "IOT environment” as a technology proposal that involves the development of a range of applications and systems based on the exploration and technical empowerment of the scenarios raised in the conceptual model. As part of the experiment, is the implementation of the theoretical model outlined under the use of the tools developed in the technology proposal. In real classes in three universities in three different cities in Spain and Colombia, were carried out the experiments by introducing various scenarios and experiences using the tools. It has been developed a standard evaluation of these experiences to take account of their design, experimental results and statistical measures of descriptive and inferential nature. The results showed that even under different cultural contexts, groups of students show the presence of learning using IOT tools and student outcomes are equivalent or in some cases better than the other groups

13th International Postgraduate Research Conference 2017 : conference proceedings

Welcome to the 13th International Postgraduate Research Conference (IPGRC 2017) hosted by the School of the Built Environment at University of Salford, UK. This year’s IPGRC is organised as part of the International Research Week 2017- ‘Shaping Tomorrow’s Built Environment: Construction and Design for the Modern World’ and also the year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Salford as a University, which makes this year’s conference very special. This conference creates a unique opportunity for researchers from Salford and other parts of the world to share their research interests, and outputs and to network and interact within a professional and friendly environment, with high profile academics and leaders within the built environment. This year’s conference brings together participants from a number of countries including the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Iran, Italy, Ireland, Norway, India, Brazil, South Korea, Nigeria, Turkey, UAE, South Africa, Iraq, Ghana, Estonia, Saudi Arabia and many more. The conference received over 100 papers and posters covering the following themes: • Business, Economics and Finance • Property and Project Management • ICT, Technology and Engineering • People, Skills and Education • Design and Urban Development • Sustainability and Environmental Systems Conference will provide a forum for novel discussions into the development and application of new and emerging practices to challenge current design and construction practice in the areas of people, process and technology issues. On behalf of School of the Built Environment, the conference co-chairs and organisers, we wish you an enjoyable and fruitful experience. We hope that you will obtain useful feedback to your research work, gain insight from work of others and forge connections for future

XXI Workshop de Investigadores en Ciencias de la Computación - WICC 2019: libro de actas

Trabajos presentados en el XXI Workshop de Investigadores en Ciencias de la Computación (WICC), celebrado en la provincia de San Juan los días 25 y 26 de abril 2019, organizado por la Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI) y la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales de la Universidad Nacional de San Juan.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic