2,602 research outputs found
Orientation system based on speculative computation and trajectory mining
Assistive technologies help users with disabilities (physical,
sensory, intellectual) to perform tasks that were difficult or impossible to
execute. Thus, the user autonomy is increased through this technology.
Although some adaptation of the user might be needed, the effort should
be minimum in order to use devices that convey assistive functionalities.
In cognitive disabilities a common diminished capacity is orientation,
which is crucial for the autonomy of an individual. There are several
research works that tackle this problem, however they are essentially
concerned with user guidance and application interface (display of information).
The work presented herein aims to overcome these systems
through a framework of Speculative Computation, which adds a prediction
feature for the next move of the user. With an anticipation feature
and a trajectory mining module the user is guided through a preferred
path receiving anticipated alerts before a possible shift in the wrong
direction.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043
and FCT Fundaçãao para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope:
UID/CEC/00319/2013. The work of João Ramos is supported by a doctoral the
FCT grant SFRH/BD/89530/2012. The work of Tiago Oliveira is also supported by the FCT grant with the reference SFRH/BD/85291/2012info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
An orientation method with prediction and anticipation features
Nowadays, progress is constant and inherent to a living society. This may occur in different arenas, namely in mathematical evaluation and healthcare. Assistive technologies are a topic under this evolution, being extremely important in helping users with diminished capabilities (physical, sensory, intellectual). These technologies assist people in tasks that were difficult or impossible to execute. A common diminished task is orientation, which is crucial for the user autonomy. The adaptation to such technologies should require the minimum effort possible in order to enable the person to use devices that convey assistive functionalities. There are several solutions that help a human being to travel between two different locations, however their authors are essentially concerned with the guidance method, giving special attention to the user interface. The CogHelper system aims to overcome these systems by applying a framework of Speculative Computation, which adds a prediction feature for the next user movement giving an anticipation ability to the system. Thus, an alert is triggered before the user turn towards an incorrect path. The travelling path is also adjusted to the user preferences through a trajectory mining module.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013. The work of João Ramos is supported by a doctoral the FCT grant SFRH/BD/89530/2012. The work of Tiago Oliveira is also supported by the FCT grant with the reference SFRH/BD/85291/2012info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Adapting the user path through trajectory data mining
The pervasiveness of location based services such the GPS on
mobile devices enabled the gathering of massive spatial-temporal data.
These databases enabled the mining of new data in order to calculate
frequent patterns and predict the movement of the objects. In the development
of our system for guiding the user with cognitive disabilities
(CogHelper) we are applying a trajectory data mining to adapt and adjust
the path to user preferences. Indeed, the guiding process may be
more useful and it increases the quality of life of the user through this
new functionality (conciliated with the speculative computation module).
Thus, instead of the user having to adapt to the application we are
developing a system that adapts the path to the user. Rather than being
guided through the shortest path he may be oriented by a longer but
preferred path. The main contribution of this paper is the specification
of the trajectory data mining which is incorporated in CogHelper system.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013. The work of João Ramos is supported by a FCT doctoral grant with the reference SFRH/BD/89530/2012.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
An alert mechanism for orientation systems based on Speculative computation
The role of assistive technologies is to help users with
diminished capabilities in the fulfillment of their everyday tasks.
One of such tasks is orientation. It is crucial for the autonomy
of an individual and, at the same time, it is one of the most
challenging tasks for an individual with cognitive disabilities.
Existing solutions that tackle this problem are mostly concerned
with guidance, tracking and the display of information. However,
there is a dimension that has not been the object of concern
in existing projects, the prediction of user actions. This work
presents a Speculative Module for an orientation system that
is used to alert the user for potential mistakes in his path,
anticipating possible shifts in the wrong direction in critical
points of the route. With this module, it becomes possible to
issue warnings to the user and increase his attention so as to
avoid a deviation from the correct path.This work is part-funded by ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) and by National Funds through the FCT Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER- 028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012) and within Project Scope UID/CEC/00319/2013. The work of João Ramos is supported by a doctoral the FCT grant SFRH/BD/89530/2012. The work of Tiago Oliveira is also supported by the FCT grant with the reference SFRH/BD/85291/2012.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Speculative orientation and tracking system
The current progresses at the intersection of computer science and health care have the
potential of greatly improving the living conditions of people with disabilities by removing
obstacles that impair the normal unfolding of their everyday lives. Assistive technologies,
as an application of scientific knowledge, aim to help users with their diminished capacities
and, usually, imply a small adaptation from individuals so that they can use the devices
that convey assistive functionalities. One of the most commonly diminished capabilities is
that of spatial orientation. This is mirrored by several research works whose goal is to help
human beings to travel between locations. Once set up, most of the systems featured in
these research works requires changes in the configurations to be made manually in order
to achieve a better adjustment to the user. In order to overcome this drawback, the work
presented herein features a framework of Speculative Computation to set up the computation
of the next step of a user using default values. The consequence of the application
of the framework is a faster reaction to user stimuli, which may result in issuing warnings
when he is likely to choose the wrong direction.This work is part-funded by ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE
Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) and by National Funds through
the FCT Fundac¸ao para a Ci ˜ encia e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and ˆ
Technology) within project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012). The
work of Joao Ramos is supported by a doctoral grant by FCT - Fundac¸ ˜ ao para a Ci ˜ encia e a ˆ
Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) SFRH/BD/89530/2012. The
work of Tiago Oliveira is also supported by the FCT grant with the reference SFRH/BD/85291/-
2012.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Orientation method for people with cognitive disabilities
Doctoral Thesis (Degree in Biomedical Engineering)Pessoas com incapacidade (física ou cognitiva) representam uma pequena percentagem da população
de um país. No entanto, os custos de saúde inerentes a este grupo de pessoas são
habitualmente elevados quando comparados com uma pessoa normal. Assim, é necessário encontrar
soluções que ajudem no dia a dia destas pessoas. Aquando do diagnóstico de perdas
cognitivas, se tal já não tiver ocorrido, o paciente pode ser impedido de viver sozinho e a presença
de um cuidador poderá ser necessária. De forma a diminuir esta invasão de privacidade e
permitir uma vida independente do paciente na sua própria casa é necessária adaptar a mesma
ao conceito de casa inteligente, a qual permite que o cuidador aceda de forma remota e verifique
o estado do utilizador. Porém, a casa inteligente não permite a monitorização do utilizador
quando este se encontra no exterior. Assim, de forma a manter-se seguro, este pode tornar-se
um prisioneiro da sua própria habitação.
Para que a pessoa com perdas cognitiva tenha uma normal interação com a sociedade surge
a necessidade de um sistema de orientação adaptável ao exterior e que esteja em conformidade
com este grupo de utilizadores. Se se considerarem os dois principais sistemas operativos para
dispositivos móveis (i.e., iOS e Android) existe um grande número de aplicações que guiam o
utilizador até ao destino pretendido utilizando GPS. Porém, existem muito poucas que sejam adequadas
para pessoas com incapacidade. Por outro lado, para além da capacidade de orientação,
existe uma outra característica deveras significativa do ponto de vista do cuidador, a capacidade
de localização que lhe permite o acesso de forma remota à localização do utilizador final. Esta
característica é vital uma vez que os métodos tradicionais de orientação são realmente dispendiosos, levando os cuidadores a acompanhar os pacientes durante as suas deslocações. Desta
forma, tanto o tempo como os recursos despendidos durante a aprendizagem são desperdiçados.
Vários autores desenvolveram sistemas de orientação adaptados tendo em consideração as
características e especificidades do utilizador. A principal preocupação centrava-se na interface
do utilizador, uma vez que consideravam que os sistemas disponíveis eram demasiado complexos
para serem utilizados por este tipo de indivíduos.
O sistema desenvolvido (i.e., CogHelper) tem uma interface adaptada ao utilizador, a qual
utiliza realidade aumentada para concretizar o processo de orientação. O sistema possui também
a capacidade de localização em tempo real onde o(s) cuidador(es) podem monitorizar o utilizador
final. O nosso principal objectivo não recaiu sobre a interface do utilizador, uma vez que esta já
tinha sido previamente estudada, mas na forma como a informação era fornecida ao utilizador.
Desta forma, o caminho selecionado para guiar o utilizador é adaptado às suas preferências.
De forma a prevenir possíveis erros durante o percurso, o sistema calcula possíveis pontos nos
quais o utilizador pode tomar uma decisão errada, e alertá-lo de forma a manter-se no caminho
correto. Estas características baseiam-se num módulo de pattern mining (para fornecer o
caminho adaptado) e numa abordagem de computação especulativa (para antecipar possíveis
erros do utilizador).People with disabilities (physical or cognitive) represent a small percentage of a country population.
However, the health costs are usually higher when compared to an ordinary person. Thus,
one should seek solutions to help the day life of such group of people. When diagnosed with
cognitive disabilities the patient may be prevented to live alone and a caregiver may be needed.
To avoid this privacy invasion and enable the patient to live independently in his home, there is the
need to adapt it to the concept of smart house, which enables the caregiver to remotely access
and check the user status. However, the smart house is not able to monitor the user when he
goes outside its premises. Thus, in order to keep the user safe, he may become a prisoner of his
own home.
To engage people with cognitive disabilities in a normal interaction with the surrounding environment
there is the need of a portable orientation system that works outdoors and is adapted
to this audience. If one look over the two main operative systems for mobile devices (i.e., iOS
and Android) there is a huge number of applications that guides the user through GPS to the
intended destination. However, there are just a few adapted to people with disabilities. Besides
the orientation feature there is also another important one from the perspective of the caregivers,
i.e., a localization feature which allows these second type of users to remotely access the main
user location. This is specially important since traditional methods are very expensive, and due
to this lack of information caregivers tend to be all the time with the patient during his journey.
Thus, the effort and resources spent to teach the user are wasted.
Different authors had developed adapted orientation systems considering the user specificities and characteristics. Their main concern was the user interface, since they considered that
available systems were too complex to be used by these group of people.
The system that was developed (i.e., CogHelper) has an adapted interface, which uses augmented
reality to provide the orientation to the user. It has also a real-time localization feature
where caregivers may know the user location. Our focus was not on the user interface, since it
was already studied, but on how to provide the necessary information to the user. Thus, the path
followed by the user is adapted to his preferences. In order to avoid mistakes during the traveling
path, the system may calculate possible locations in which the user takes the wrong turn and
alert him to keep on the correct path. These features are based on a pattern mining module (to
provide the preferred path) and on a speculative computation approach (to anticipate possible
user mistakes).The work of João Ramos is supported by a doctoral grant by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a
Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/89530/2012)
Multi-Agent Systems
This Special Issue ""Multi-Agent Systems"" gathers original research articles reporting results on the steadily growing area of agent-oriented computing and multi-agent systems technologies. After more than 20 years of academic research on multi-agent systems (MASs), in fact, agent-oriented models and technologies have been promoted as the most suitable candidates for the design and development of distributed and intelligent applications in complex and dynamic environments. With respect to both their quality and range, the papers in this Special Issue already represent a meaningful sample of the most recent advancements in the field of agent-oriented models and technologies. In particular, the 17 contributions cover agent-based modeling and simulation, situated multi-agent systems, socio-technical multi-agent systems, and semantic technologies applied to multi-agent systems. In fact, it is surprising to witness how such a limited portion of MAS research already highlights the most relevant usage of agent-based models and technologies, as well as their most appreciated characteristics. We are thus confident that the readers of Applied Sciences will be able to appreciate the growing role that MASs will play in the design and development of the next generation of complex intelligent systems. This Special Issue has been converted into a yearly series, for which a new call for papers is already available at the Applied Sciences journal’s website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Multi-Agent_Systems_2019
On the ballistic capture of asteroids for resource utilisation
This paper investigates the concept of capturing in the Earth’s neighbourhood Earth-approaching objects such as asteroids and comets. These objects may provide access to potential resources, as well as be potential scientific mission opportunities. A statistical approach is used to assess the fraction of the near-Earth object population with a given set of Keplerian elements. This is used to estimate the number of objects with the potential to fly-by the Earth with low relative velocities. The circular restricted three-body problem is then used to show that objects approaching Earth at low hyperbolic excess velocities can potentially be gravitationally captured at Earth. The Tisserand parameter, used as an approximation of the Jacobi constant, can be used to delimit the orbital regions from were low-energy transfers should be expected to exist and asteroids could possibly be transported at a minimum expenditure of energy. Finally, a semi-analytical approximation of the gravitational perturbation in the CR3BP is used to assess the feasible asteroid transport fluxes of capturable material that could be achieved by judicious use of Earth gravitational perturbations
Electronic systems for the restoration of the sense of touch in upper limb prosthetics
In the last few years, research on active prosthetics for upper limbs focused
on improving the human functionalities and the control. New methods have
been proposed for measuring the user muscle activity and translating it into
the prosthesis control commands. Developing the feed-forward interface so
that the prosthesis better follows the intention of the user is an important
step towards improving the quality of life of people with limb amputation.
However, prosthesis users can neither feel if something or someone is
touching them over the prosthesis and nor perceive the temperature or
roughness of objects. Prosthesis users are helped by looking at an object,
but they cannot detect anything otherwise. Their sight gives them most
information. Therefore, to foster the prosthesis embodiment and utility,
it is necessary to have a prosthetic system that not only responds to the
control signals provided by the user, but also transmits back to the user
the information about the current state of the prosthesis.
This thesis presents an electronic skin system to close the loop in prostheses
towards the restoration of the sense of touch in prosthesis users. The
proposed electronic skin system inlcudes an advanced distributed sensing
(electronic skin), a system for (i) signal conditioning, (ii) data acquisition,
and (iii) data processing, and a stimulation system. The idea is to integrate
all these components into a myoelectric prosthesis.
Embedding the electronic system and the sensing materials is a critical issue
on the way of development of new prostheses. In particular, processing
the data, originated from the electronic skin, into low- or high-level information
is the key issue to be addressed by the embedded electronic system.
Recently, it has been proved that the Machine Learning is a promising
approach in processing tactile sensors information. Many studies have
been shown the Machine Learning eectiveness in the classication of input
touch modalities.More specically, this thesis is focused on the stimulation system, allowing
the communication of a mechanical interaction from the electronic skin
to prosthesis users, and the dedicated implementation of algorithms for
processing tactile data originating from the electronic skin. On system
level, the thesis provides design of the experimental setup, experimental
protocol, and of algorithms to process tactile data. On architectural level,
the thesis proposes a design
ow for the implementation of digital circuits
for both FPGA and integrated circuits, and techniques for the power
management of embedded systems for Machine Learning algorithms
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