Implementing a map based simulator for the location API for J2ME

The Java Location API for J2METM integrates generic positioning and orientation data with persistent storage of landmark objects. It can be used to develop location based service applications for small mobile devices, and these applications can be tested using simulation environments. Currently the only simulation tools in the public domain are proprietary mobile device simulators that are driven by GPS data log files, but it is sometimes useful to be able to test location based services using interactive map-based tools. In addition, we may need to experiment with extensions and changes to the standard API to support additional services, requiring an open source environment. In this paper we describe the implementation of an open source map-based simulation tool compatible with other commonly used development and deployment tools

Investigating design issues of context-aware mobile guides for people with visual impairments

While mobile wayfinding systems for visually impaired people offer huge potential, most insufficiently address the differences between visual impairments and contextual environments, and offer very little context-awareness - usability issues of which are vital in supporting independent mobility. Participants experiencing a loss of central vision, loss of peripheral vision, and total vision loss made up three groups. Our multidisciplinary model of context was used to design a user study, which involved asking participants to walk to pre-determined outdoor and indoor landmarks. Significant differences were found between groups relating to information requirements, and the environmental cues encoded and used to orientate and navigate. The study also found differences between indoor and outdoor contexts. It was concluded that what is meaningful to one form of visual impairment is incidental to another. These issues need to be captured and accounted for if wayfinding systems are to be usable

Past, Present, and Future of Simultaneous Localization And Mapping: Towards the Robust-Perception Age

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)consists in the concurrent construction of a model of the environment (the map), and the estimation of the state of the robot moving within it. The SLAM community has made astonishing progress over the last 30 years, enabling large-scale real-world applications, and witnessing a steady transition of this technology to industry. We survey the current state of SLAM. We start by presenting what is now the de-facto standard formulation for SLAM. We then review related work, covering a broad set of topics including robustness and scalability in long-term mapping, metric and semantic representations for mapping, theoretical performance guarantees, active SLAM and exploration, and other new frontiers. This paper simultaneously serves as a position paper and tutorial to those who are users of SLAM. By looking at the published research with a critical eye, we delineate open challenges and new research issues, that still deserve careful scientific investigation. The paper also contains the authors' take on two questions that often animate discussions during robotics conferences: Do robots need SLAM? and Is SLAM solved

A corpus-based analysis of route instructions in human-robot interaction

This paper investigates how users employ spatial descriptions to navigate a speech-enabled robot. We created a simulated environment in which users gave route instructions in a dialogic real-time interaction with a robot, which was operated by naïve participants. The ability of robot monitoring was also manipulated in two experimental conditions. The results provide evidence that the content of the instructions and strategies of the users vary depending on the conditions and demands of the interaction. As expected, the route instructions frequently were underspecified and arbitrary. The findings of this study elucidate the complexity in interpreting spatial language in HRI. However, they also point to the need for endowing mobile robots with richer dialogue resources to compensate for the uncertainties arising from language as well as the environment

Active User Authentication for Smartphones: A Challenge Data Set and Benchmark Results

In this paper, automated user verification techniques for smartphones are investigated. A unique non-commercial dataset, the University of Maryland Active Authentication Dataset 02 (UMDAA-02) for multi-modal user authentication research is introduced. This paper focuses on three sensors - front camera, touch sensor and location service while providing a general description for other modalities. Benchmark results for face detection, face verification, touch-based user identification and location-based next-place prediction are presented, which indicate that more robust methods fine-tuned to the mobile platform are needed to achieve satisfactory verification accuracy. The dataset will be made available to the research community for promoting additional research.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. Best poster award at BTAS 201

Tahap penguasaan, sikap dan minat pelajar Kolej Kemahiran Tinggi MARA terhadap mata pelajaran Bahasa Inggeris

Kajian ini dilakukan untuk mengenal pasti tahap penguasaan, sikap dan minat pelajar Kolej Kemahiran Tinggi Mara Sri Gading terhadap Bahasa Inggeris. Kajian yang dijalankan ini berbentuk deskriptif atau lebih dikenali sebagai kaedah tinjauan. Seramai 325 orang pelajar Diploma in Construction Technology dari Kolej Kemahiran Tinggi Mara di daerah Batu Pahat telah dipilih sebagai sampel dalam kajian ini. Data yang diperoleh melalui instrument soal selidik telah dianalisis untuk mendapatkan pengukuran min, sisihan piawai, dan Pekali Korelasi Pearson untuk melihat hubungan hasil dapatan data. Manakala, frekuensi dan peratusan digunakan bagi mengukur penguasaan pelajar. Hasil dapatan kajian menunjukkan bahawa tahap penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris pelajar adalah berada pada tahap sederhana manakala faktor utama yang mempengaruhi penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris tersebut adalah minat diikuti oleh sikap. Hasil dapatan menggunakan pekali Korelasi Pearson juga menunjukkan bahawa terdapat hubungan yang signifikan antara sikap dengan penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris dan antara minat dengan penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris. Kajian menunjukkan bahawa semakin positif sikap dan minat pelajar terhadap pengajaran dan pembelajaran Bahasa Inggeris semakin tinggi pencapaian mereka. Hasil daripada kajian ini diharapkan dapat membantu pelajar dalam meningkatkan penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris dengan memupuk sikap positif dalam diri serta meningkatkan minat mereka terhadap Bahasa Inggeris dengan lebih baik. Oleh itu, diharap kajian ini dapat memberi panduan kepada pihak-pihak yang terlibat dalam membuat kajian yang akan datang