Study of Tools Interoperability

Interoperability of tools usually refers to a combination of methods and techniques that address the problem of making a collection of tools to work together. In this study we survey different notions that are used in this context: interoperability, interaction and integration. We point out relation between these notions, and how it maps to the interoperability problem. We narrow the problem area to the tools development in academia. Tools developed in such environment have a small basis for development, documentation and maintenance. We scrutinise some of the problems and potential solutions related with tools interoperability in such environment. Moreover, we look at two tools developed in the Formal Methods and Tools group1, and analyse the use of different integration techniques

Remarkable Objects: Supporting Collaboration in a Creative Environment

In this paper, we report the results of a field trial of a Ubicomp system called CAM that is aimed at supporting and enhancing collaboration in a design studio environment. CAM uses a mobile-tagging application which allows designers to collaboratively store relevant information onto their physical design objects in the form of messages, annotations and external web links. The purpose of our field trial was to explore the role of augmented objects in supporting and enhancing creative work. Our results show that CAM was used not only used to support participants’ mutual awareness and coordination but also to facilitate designers in appropriating their augmented design objects to be explorative, extendable and playful supporting creative aspects of design work. In general, our results show how CAM transformed static design objects into ‘remarkable’ objects that made the creative and playful side of cooperative design visible

A RESTful Rule Management Framework for Internet of Things Applications

Web technologies are currently regarded as key enabling factors for the Internet of Things (IoT), and substantial effort is being dedicated to bringing sensors and data from the real world to the Web. In addition, rule-based automation mechanisms are expected to play a significant role in the effective integration of the physical world with the virtual world by leveraging a trigger-action paradigm. Although several rule engines are already available, limited effort has been devoted to rule-based solutions that are tailored to the IoT and consider rule configurability and extensibility according to application requirements. In this work, we propose a RESTful rule management framework for IoT applications that satisfies these requirements. The framework is centered around a resource-based graph, which enables the uniform representation of things (e.g., sensors and domain entities) and rules as URI-addressable resources. We describe the design and implementation choices of the main rule management features (rule scheduling, activation and RESTful operations for managing rules at various levels of configurability and extensibility). Finally, we present a case study and performance evaluation results regarding the use of this rule management framework in a set of school buildings that were part of a real-world IoT deployment that was realized within the Horizon 2020 GAIA research project, with the objective of promoting energy -saving behaviors in school communities

Configurability, Maturity, and Value Co-creation in SaaS: An Exploratory Case Study

This study answers the research question, “How do value co-creation components – value, offering, value networks, user involvement, and interaction process – change over time as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) configurability moves toward maturity?” We conducted a case study of GlobalSchool, a SaaS company providing administrative software to small-sized schools. We refined the SaaS maturity model by integrating the concept of self-service. We further assessed configurability (along with SaaS maturity) from the co-creation of value perspective. Our findings show that value co-creation components are dynamic, changing at different maturity levels. We also identified two drivers for change – knowledge and volume of clients. Our study contributed toward the SaaS and value co-creation literature. The managerial implications include the need for SaaS vendors to balance between providing support and self-service, solicit feedback from long-standing clients, and slowly transition clients to the self-service concept

Aesthetic Approaches to Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the NordiCHI 2004 Workshop, Tampere, Finland, October 24, 200

MACE: Joint Deliverable "Evaluation of the MACE system"

Stefaner, M., Wolpers, M., Memmel, M., Duval, E., Specht, M., Börner, D., Gruber, M., De Jong, T., Giretti, A., & Klemke, R. (2009). MACE: Joint Deliverable "Evaluation of the MACE system". MACE-project.This deliverable presents the evaluation results of the MACE project1. MACE integrates large amounts of technology enhanced learning contents and metadata in the domain of architecture, in order to create a framework for the integration of multiple content sources, content enrichment with different metadata types, and improved access to these existing contents.MAC

User perception of robot's role in floor projection-based Mixed-Reality robotic games

Within the emerging research area represented by robotic gaming and, specifically, in application domains in which the recent literature suggests to combine commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) robots and projected mixed reality (MR) technology in order to develop engaging games, one of the crucial issues to consider in the design process is how to make the player perceive the robot as having a key role, i.e., to valorize its presence from the user experience point of view. By moving from this consideration, this paper reports efforts that are being carried out with the aim to investigate the impact of diverse game design choices in the above perspective, while at the same time extracting preliminary insights that can be exploited to orient further research in the field of MR-based robotic gaming and related scenarios