GART: The Gesture and Activity Recognition Toolkit

Presented at the 12th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Beijing, China, July 2007.The original publication is available at www.springerlink.comThe Gesture and Activity Recognition Toolit (GART) is a user interface toolkit designed to enable the development of gesture-based applications. GART provides an abstraction to machine learning algorithms suitable for modeling and recognizing different types of gestures. The toolkit also provides support for the data collection and the training process. In this paper, we present GART and its machine learning abstractions. Furthermore, we detail the components of the toolkit and present two example gesture recognition applications

MaestROB: A Robotics Framework for Integrated Orchestration of Low-Level Control and High-Level Reasoning

This paper describes a framework called MaestROB. It is designed to make the robots perform complex tasks with high precision by simple high-level instructions given by natural language or demonstration. To realize this, it handles a hierarchical structure by using the knowledge stored in the forms of ontology and rules for bridging among different levels of instructions. Accordingly, the framework has multiple layers of processing components; perception and actuation control at the low level, symbolic planner and Watson APIs for cognitive capabilities and semantic understanding, and orchestration of these components by a new open source robot middleware called Project Intu at its core. We show how this framework can be used in a complex scenario where multiple actors (human, a communication robot, and an industrial robot) collaborate to perform a common industrial task. Human teaches an assembly task to Pepper (a humanoid robot from SoftBank Robotics) using natural language conversation and demonstration. Our framework helps Pepper perceive the human demonstration and generate a sequence of actions for UR5 (collaborative robot arm from Universal Robots), which ultimately performs the assembly (e.g. insertion) task.Comment: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2018. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19JsdZi0TW

Contours of Inclusion: Inclusive Arts Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this publication is to share models and case examples of the process of inclusive arts curriculum design and evaluation. The first section explains the conceptual and curriculum frameworks that were used in the analysis and generation of the featured case studies (i.e. Understanding by Design, Differentiated Instruction, and Universal Design for Learning). Data for the cases studies was collected from three urban sites (i.e. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston) and included participant observations, student and teacher interviews, curriculum documentation, digital documentation of student learning, and transcripts from discussion forum and teleconference discussions from a professional learning community.The initial case studies by Glass and Barnum use the curricular frameworks to analyze and understand what inclusive practices look like in two case studies of arts-in-education programs that included students with disabilities. The second set of precedent case studies by Kronenberg and Blair, and Jenkins and Agois Hurel uses the frameworks to explain their process of including students by providing flexible arts learning options to support student learning of content standards. Both sets of case studies illuminate curricular design decisions and instructional strategies that supported the active engagement and learning of students with disabilities in educational settings shared with their peers. The second set of cases also illustrate the reflective process of using frameworks like Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to guide curricular design, responsive instructional differentiation, and the use of the arts as a rich, meaningful, and engaging option to support learning. Appended are curriculum design and evaluation tools. (Individual chapters contain references.

Design and semantics of form and movement (DeSForM 2006)

Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM) grew from applied research exploring emerging design methods and practices to support new generation product and interface design. The products and interfaces are concerned with: the context of ubiquitous computing and ambient technologies and the need for greater empathy in the pre-programmed behaviour of the ‘machines’ that populate our lives. Such explorative research in the CfDR has been led by Young, supported by Kyffin, Visiting Professor from Philips Design and sponsored by Philips Design over a period of four years (research funding £87k). DeSForM1 was the first of a series of three conferences that enable the presentation and debate of international work within this field: • 1st European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM1), Baltic, Gateshead, 2005, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 2nd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM2), Evoluon, Eindhoven, 2006, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 3rd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM3), New Design School Building, Newcastle, 2007, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. Philips sponsorship of practice-based enquiry led to research by three teams of research students over three years and on-going sponsorship of research through the Northumbria University Design and Innovation Laboratory (nuDIL). Young has been invited on the steering panel of the UK Thinking Digital Conference concerning the latest developments in digital and media technologies. Informed by this research is the work of PhD student Yukie Nakano who examines new technologies in relation to eco-design textiles

Be bold and take a challenge: could motivational strategies improve help-seeking?

Part of the motivation behind the evolution of learning environments is the idea of providing students with individualized instructional strategies that allow them to learn as much as possible. It has been suggested that the goals an individual holds create a framework or orientation from which they react and respond to events. There is a large evidence-based literature which supports the notion of mastery and performance approaches to learning and which identifies distinct behavioural patterns associated with each. However, it remains unclear how these orientations manifest themselves within the individual: an important question to address when applying goal theory to the development of a goal-sensitive learner model. This paper exposes some of these issues by describing two empirical studies. They approach the subject from different perspectives, one from the implementation of an affective computing system and the other a classroom-based study, have both encountered the same empirical and theoretical problems: the dispositional/situational aspect and the dimensionality of goal orientation

Collaborative Practices that Support Creativity in Design

Design is a ubiquitous, collaborative and highly material activity. Because of the embodied nature of the design profession, designers apply certain collaborative practices to enhance creativity in their everyday work. Within the domain of industrial design, we studied two educational design departments over a period of eight months. Using examples from our fieldwork, we develop our results around three broad themes related to collaborative practices that support the creativity of design professionals: 1) externalization, 2) use of physical space, and 3) use of bodies. We believe that these themes of collaborative practices could provide new insights into designing technologies for supporting a varied set of design activities. We describe two conceptual collaborative systems derived from the results of our study

Trends in virtual reality technologies for the learning patient

NextMed convened the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 22 (MMVR 22) conference in 2016. Since 1992, the conference has brought together a diverse group of researchers to share creative solutions for the evolving challenge of integrating virtual reality tools into medical education. Virtual reality (VR) and its enabling technologies utilize hardware and software to simulate environments and encounters where users can interact and learn. The MMVR 22 symposium proceedings contain projects that support a variety of learners: medical students, practitioners, soldiers, and patients. This report will contemplate the trends in virtual reality technologies for patients navigating their medical and healthcare learning. The learning patient seeks more than intervention; they seek prevention. From virtual humans and environments to motion sensors and haptic devices, patients are surrounded by increasingly rich and transformative data-driven tools. Applied data enables VR applications to simulate experience, predict health outcomes, and motivate new behavior. The MMVR 22 presents investigations into the usability of wearable devices, the efficacy of avatar inclusion, and the viability of multi-player gaming. With increasing need for individualized and scalable programming, only committed open source efforts will align instructional designers, technology integrators, trainers, and clinicians. Curriculum and InstructionCurriculum and Instructio