Managing ubiquitous eco cities: the role of urban telecommunication infrastructure networks and convergence technologies

A successful urban management system for a Ubiquitous Eco City requires an integrated approach. This integration includes bringing together economic, socio-cultural and urban development with a well orchestrated, transparent and open decision making mechanism and necessary infrastructure and technologies. Rapidly developing information and telecommunication technologies and their platforms in the late 20th Century improves urban management and enhances the quality of life and place. Telecommunication technologies provide an important base for monitoring and managing activities over wired, wireless or fibre-optic networks. Particularly technology convergence creates new ways in which the information and telecommunication technologies are used. The 21st Century is an era where information has converged, in which people are able to access a variety of services, including internet and location based services, through multi-functional devices such as mobile phones and provides opportunities in the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities. This paper discusses the recent developments in telecommunication networks and trends in convergence technologies and their implications on the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities and how this technological shift is likely to be beneficial in improving the quality of life and place. The paper also introduces recent approaches on urban management systems, such as intelligent urban management systems, that are suitable for Ubiquitous Eco Cities

Staying Connected on the Road: A Comparison of Different Types of Smart Phone Use in a Driving Simulator

abstract: Previous research on smart phone use while driving has primarily focused on phone calls and texting. Drivers are now increasingly using their phone for other activities during driving, in particular social media, which have different cognitive demands. The present study compared the effects of four different smart phone tasks on car-following performance in a driving simulator. Phone tasks were chosen that vary across two factors: interaction medium (text vs image) and task pacing (self-paced vs experimenter-paced) and were as follows: Text messaging with the experimenter (text/other-paced), reading Facebook posts (text/self-paced), exchanging photos with the experimenter via Snapchat (image, experimenter -paced), and viewing updates on Instagram (image, experimenter -paced). Drivers also performed a driving only baseline. Brake reaction times (BRTs) were significantly greater in the text-based conditions (Mean = 1.16 s) as compared to both the image-based conditions (Mean = 0.92 s) and the baseline (0.88 s). There was no significant difference between BRTs in the image-based and baseline conditions and there was no significant effect of task-pacing. Similar results were obtained for Time Headway variability. These results are consistent with the picture superiority effect found in memory research and suggest that image-based interfaces could provide safer ways to “stay connected” while driving than text-based interfaces.The article is published at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.014855

Development of a user-friendly, low-cost home energy monitoring and recording system

This paper reports research undertaken to develop a user-friendly home energy monitoring system which is capable of collecting, processing and displaying detailed usage data. The system allows users to monitor power usage and switch their electronic appliances remotely, using any web enabled device, including computers, phones and tablets. The system aims to raise awareness of consumer energy use by gathering data about usage habits, and displaying this information to support consumers when selecting energy tariffs or new appliances. To achieve these aims, bespoke electrical hardware, or ‘nodes’, have been designed and built to monitor power usage, switch devices on and off, and communicate via a Wi-Fi connection, with bespoke software, the ‘server’. The server hosts a webpage which allows users to see a real-time overview of how power is being used in the home as well as allowing scheduled tasks and triggered tasks (which respond to events) to be programmed. The system takes advantage of well standardised networking specifications, such as Wi-Fi and TCP, allowing access from within the home, or remotely through the internet. The server runs under Debian Linux on a Raspberry Pi computer and is written in Python, HTML and JavaScript. The server includes advanced functionality, such as device recognition which allows users to individually monitor several devices that share a single node. The openPicus Flyport is used to provide Wi-Fi connectivity and programmable logic control to nodes. The Flyport is programmed with code compiled from C

Pervasive Technologies and Support for Independent Living

A broad range of pervasive technologies are used in many domains, including healthcare: however, there appears to be little work examining the role of such technologies in the home, or the different wants and needs of elderly users. Additionally, there exist ethical issues surrounding the use of highly personal healthcare-related data, and interface issues centred on the novelty of the technologies and the disabilities experienced by the users. This report examines these areas, before considering the ways in which they might come together to help support independent-living users with disabilities which may be age-related

Age-related cognitive decline and navigation in electronic environments

The older population is increasing, as is life expectancy. Technical devices are becoming more widespread and used for many everyday tasks. Knowledge about new technology is important to remain as an active and independent part of the society. However, if an old user group should have equal access to this technology, new demands will be placed on the design of interfaces and devices. With respect to old users it is and will be important to develop technical devices and interfaces that take the age-related decline in physical and cognitive abilities into account. The aim of this work was to investigate to what extent the age-related cognitive decline affects performance on different computer-related tasks and the use of different interfaces. With respect to the use of computer interfaces, two studies were conducted. In the first study, the information was presented with a hierarchical structure. In the second study the information was presented as a 3D-environment, and it was also investigated how an overview map could support navigation. The third study examined the age-related cognitive decline in the use of a small mobile phone display with a hierarchical information structure. The results from the studies showed that the most pronounced age-related difference was found in the use of the 3D-environment. Within this environment, prior experience was found to have the largest impact on performance. Regarding the hierarchical information structures, prior experience seemed to have a larger impact on performance of easy tasks, while age and cognitive abilities had a larger impact on performance of more complex tasks. With respect to navigation aids, the overview map in the 3D-environment did not reduce the age-differences; however, it contributed to a better perceived orientation and reduced the feeling of being lost

Study of the interaction with a virtual 3D environment displayed on a smartphone

Les environnements virtuels à 3D (EV 3D) sont de plus en plus utilisés dans différentes applications telles que la CAO, les jeux ou la téléopération. L'évolution des performances matérielles des Smartphones a conduit à l'introduction des applications 3D sur les appareils mobiles. En outre, les Smartphones offrent de nouvelles capacités bien au-delà de la communication vocale traditionnelle qui sont consentis par l'intégrité d'une grande variété de capteurs et par la connectivité via Internet. En conséquence, plusieurs intéressantes applications 3D peuvent être conçues en permettant aux capacités de l'appareil d'interagir dans un EV 3D. Sachant que les Smartphones ont de petits et aplatis écrans et que EV 3D est large, dense et contenant un grand nombre de cibles de tailles différentes, les appareils mobiles présentent certaines contraintes d'interaction dans l'EV 3D comme : la densité de l'environnement, la profondeur de cibles et l'occlusion. La tâche de sélection fait face à ces trois problèmes pour sélectionner une cible. De plus, la tâche de sélection peut être décomposée en trois sous-tâches : la Navigation, le Pointage et la Validation. En conséquence, les chercheurs dans un environnement virtuel 3D ont développé de nouvelles techniques et métaphores pour l'interaction en 3D afin d'améliorer l'utilisation des applications 3D sur les appareils mobiles, de maintenir la tâche de sélection et de faire face aux problèmes ou facteurs affectant la performance de sélection. En tenant compte de ces considérations, cette thèse expose un état de l'art des techniques de sélection existantes dans un EV 3D et des techniques de sélection sur Smartphone. Il expose les techniques de sélection dans un EV 3D structurées autour des trois sous-tâches de sélection: navigation, pointage et validation. En outre, il décrit les techniques de désambiguïsation permettant de sélectionner une cible parmi un ensemble d'objets présélectionnés. Ultérieurement, il expose certaines techniques d'interaction décrites dans la littérature et conçues pour être implémenter sur un Smartphone. Ces techniques sont divisées en deux groupes : techniques effectuant des tâches de sélection bidimensionnelle sur un Smartphone et techniques exécutant des tâches de sélection tridimensionnelle sur un Smartphone. Enfin, nous exposons les techniques qui utilisaient le Smartphone comme un périphérique de saisie. Ensuite, nous discuterons la problématique de sélection dans un EV 3D affichée sur un Smartphone. Il expose les trois problèmes identifiés de sélection : la densité de l'environnement, la profondeur des cibles et l'occlusion. Ensuite, il établit l'amélioration offerte par chaque technique existante pour la résolution des problèmes de sélection. Il analyse les atouts proposés par les différentes techniques, la manière dont ils éliminent les problèmes, leurs avantages et leurs inconvénients. En outre, il illustre la classification des techniques de sélection pour un EV 3D en fonction des trois problèmes discutés (densité, profondeur et occlusion) affectant les performances de sélection dans un environnement dense à 3D. Hormis pour les jeux vidéo, l'utilisation d'environnement virtuel 3D sur Smartphone n'est pas encore démocratisée. Ceci est dû au manque de techniques d'interaction proposées pour interagir avec un dense EV 3D composé de nombreux objets proches les uns des autres et affichés sur un petit écran aplati et les problèmes de sélection pour afficher l' EV 3D sur un petit écran plutôt sur un grand écran. En conséquence, cette thèse se concentre sur la proposition et la description du fruit de cette étude : la technique d'interaction DichotoZoom. Elle compare et évalue la technique proposée à la technique de circulation suggérée par la littérature. L'analyse comparative montre l'efficacité de la technique DichotoZoom par rapport à sa contrepartie. Ensuite, DichotoZoom a été évalué selon les différentes modalités d'interaction disponibles sur les Smartphones. Cette évaluation montre la performance de la technique de sélection proposée basée sur les quatre modalités d'interaction suivantes : utilisation de boutons physiques ou sous forme de composants graphiques, utilisation d'interactions gestuelles via l'écran tactile ou le déplacement de l'appareil lui-même. Enfin, cette thèse énumère nos contributions dans le domaine des techniques d'interaction 3D utilisées dans un environnement virtuel 3D dense affiché sur de petits écrans et propose des travaux futurs.3D Virtual Environments (3D VE) are more and more used in different applications such as CAD, games, or teleoperation. Due to the improvement of smartphones hardware performance, 3D applications were also introduced to mobile devices. In addition, smartphones provide new computing capabilities far beyond the traditional voice communication. They are permitted by the variety of built-in sensors and the internet connectivity. In consequence, interesting 3D applications can be designed by enabling the device capabilities to interact in a 3D VE. Due to the fact that smartphones have small and flat screens and that a 3D VE is wide and dense with a large number of targets of various sizes, mobile devices present some constraints in interacting on the 3D VE like: the environment density, the depth of targets and the occlusion. The selection task faces these three problems to select a target. In addition, the selection task can be decomposed into three subtasks: Navigation, Pointing and Validation. In consequence, researchers in 3D virtual environment have developed new techniques and metaphors for 3D interaction to improve 3D application usability on mobile devices, to support the selection task and to face the problems or factors affecting selection performance. In light of these considerations, this thesis exposes a state of the art of the existing selection techniques in 3D VE and the selection techniques on smartphones. It exposes the selection techniques in 3D VE structured around the selection subtasks: navigation, pointing and validation. Moreover, it describes disambiguation techniques providing the selection of a target from a set of pre-selected objects. Afterward, it exposes some interaction techniques described in literature and designed for implementation on Smartphone. These techniques are divided into two groups: techniques performing two-dimensional selection tasks on smartphones, and techniques performing three-dimensional selection tasks on smartphones. Finally, we expose techniques that used the smartphone as an input device. Then, we will discuss the problematic of selecting in 3D VE displayed on a Smartphone. It exposes the three identified selection problems: the environment density, the depth of targets and the occlusion. Afterward, it establishes the enhancement offered by each existing technique in solving the selection problems. It analysis the assets proposed by different techniques, the way they eliminates the problems, their advantages and their inconvenient. Furthermore, it illustrates the classification of the selection techniques for 3D VE according to the three discussed problems (density, depth and occlusion) affecting the selection performance in a dense 3D VE. Except for video games, the use of 3D virtual environment (3D VE) on Smartphone has not yet been popularized. This is due to the lack of interaction techniques to interact with a dense 3D VE composed of many objects close to each other and displayed on a small and flat screen and the selection problems to display the 3D VE on a small screen rather on a large screen. Accordingly, this thesis focuses on defining and describing the fruit of this study: DichotoZoom interaction technique. It compares and evaluates the proposed technique to the Circulation technique, suggested by the literature. The comparative analysis shows the effectiveness of DichotoZoom technique compared to its counterpart. Then, DichotoZoom was evaluated in different modalities of interaction available on Smartphones. It reports on the performance of the proposed selection technique based on the following four interaction modalities: using physical buttons, using graphical buttons, using gestural interactions via touchscreen or moving the device itself. Finally, this thesis lists our contributions to the field of 3D interaction techniques used in a dense 3D virtual environment displayed on small screens and proposes some future works

Improving command selection in smart environments by exploiting spatial constancy

With the a steadily increasing number of digital devices, our environments are becoming increasingly smarter: we can now use our tablets to control our TV, access our recipe database while cooking, and remotely turn lights on and off. Currently, this Human-Environment Interaction (HEI) is limited to in-place interfaces, where people have to walk up to a mounted set of switches and buttons, and navigation-based interaction, where people have to navigate on-screen menus, for example on a smart-phone, tablet, or TV screen. Unfortunately, there are numerous scenarios in which neither of these two interaction paradigms provide fast and convenient access to digital artifacts and system commands. People, for example, might not want to touch an interaction device because their hands are dirty from cooking: they want device-free interaction. Or people might not want to have to look at a screen because it would interrupt their current task: they want system-feedback-free interaction. Currently, there is no interaction paradigm for smart environments that allows people for these kinds of interactions. In my dissertation, I introduce Room-based Interaction to solve this problem of HEI. With room-based interaction, people associate digital artifacts and system commands with real-world objects in the environment and point toward these real-world proxy objects for selecting the associated digital artifact. The design of room-based interaction is informed by a theoretical analysis of navigation- and pointing-based selection techniques, where I investigated the cognitive systems involved in executing a selection. An evaluation of room-based interaction in three user studies and a comparison with existing HEI techniques revealed that room-based interaction solves many shortcomings of existing HEI techniques: the use of real-world proxy objects makes it easy for people to learn the interaction technique and to perform accurate pointing gestures, and it allows for system-feedback-free interaction; the use of the environment as flat input space makes selections fast; the use of mid-air full-arm pointing gestures allows for device-free interaction and increases awareness of other’s interactions with the environment. Overall, I present an alternative selection paradigm for smart environments that is superior to existing techniques in many common HEI-scenarios. This new paradigm can make HEI more user-friendly, broaden the use cases of smart environments, and increase their acceptance for the average user

Warning a Distracted Driver: Smart Phone Applications, Informative Warnings and Automated Driving Take-Over Requests

abstract: While various collision warning studies in driving have been conducted, only a handful of studies have investigated the effectiveness of warnings with a distracted driver. Across four experiments, the present study aimed to understand the apparent gap in the literature of distracted drivers and warning effectiveness, specifically by studying various warnings presented to drivers while they were operating a smart phone. Experiment One attempted to understand which smart phone tasks, (text vs image) or (self-paced vs other-paced) are the most distracting to a driver. Experiment Two compared the effectiveness of different smartphone based applications (app’s) for mitigating driver distraction. Experiment Three investigated the effects of informative auditory and tactile warnings which were designed to convey directional information to a distracted driver (moving towards or away). Lastly, Experiment Four extended the research into the area of autonomous driving by investigating the effectiveness of different auditory take-over request signals. Novel to both Experiment Three and Four was that the warnings were delivered from the source of the distraction (i.e., by either the sound triggered at the smart phone location or through a vibration given on the wrist of the hand holding the smart phone). This warning placement was an attempt to break the driver’s attentional focus on their smart phone and understand how to best re-orient the driver in order to improve the driver’s situational awareness (SA). The overall goal was to explore these novel methods of improved SA so drivers may more quickly and appropriately respond to a critical event.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Applied Psychology 201