Geoinformatics in Citizen Science

The book features contributions that report original research in the theoretical, technological, and social aspects of geoinformation methods, as applied to supporting citizen science. Specifically, the book focuses on the technological aspects of the field and their application toward the recruitment of volunteers and the collection, management, and analysis of geotagged information to support volunteer involvement in scientific projects. Internationally renowned research groups share research in three areas: First, the key methods of geoinformatics within citizen science initiatives to support scientists in discovering new knowledge in specific application domains or in performing relevant activities, such as reliable geodata filtering, management, analysis, synthesis, sharing, and visualization; second, the critical aspects of citizen science initiatives that call for emerging or novel approaches of geoinformatics to acquire and handle geoinformation; and third, novel geoinformatics research that could serve in support of citizen science

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is a natural development from virtual reality (VR), which was developed several decades earlier. AR complements VR in many ways. Due to the advantages of the user being able to see both the real and virtual objects simultaneously, AR is far more intuitive, but it's not completely detached from human factors and other restrictions. AR doesn't consume as much time and effort in the applications because it's not required to construct the entire virtual scene and the environment. In this book, several new and emerging application areas of AR are presented and divided into three sections. The first section contains applications in outdoor and mobile AR, such as construction, restoration, security and surveillance. The second section deals with AR in medical, biological, and human bodies. The third and final section contains a number of new and useful applications in daily living and learning

Sound based social networks

The sound environment is an eco of the activity and character of each place, often carrying additional information to that made available to the eyes (both new and redundant). It is, therefore, an intangible and volatile acoustic fingerprint of the place, or simply an acoustic snapshot of a single event. Such rich resource, full of meaning and subtleness, Schaeffer called Soundscape. The exploratory research project presented here addresses the Soundscape in the context of Mobile Online Social Networking, aiming at determining the extent of its applicability regarding the establishment and/or strengthening of new and existing social links. Such research goal demanded an interdisciplinary approach, which we have anchored in three main stems: Soundscapes, Mobile Sound and Social Networking. These three areas pave the scientific ground for this study and are introduced during the first part of the thesis. An extensive survey of the state-of-the-arte projects related with this research is also presented, gathering examples from different but adjacent areas such as mobile sensing, wearable computing, sonification, social media and contextaware computing. This survey validates that our approach is scientifically opportune and unique, at the same time. Furthermore, in order to assess the role of Soundscapes in the context of Social Networking, an experimental procedure has been implemented based on an Online Social Networking mobile application, enriched with environmental sensing mechanisms, able to capture and analyze the surrounding Soundscape and users' movements. Two main goals guided this prototypal research tool: collecting data regarding users' activity (both sonic and kinetic) and providing users with a real experience using a Sound-Based Social Network, in order to collect informed opinions about this unique type of Social Networking. The application – Hurly-Burly – senses the surrounding Soundscape and analyzes it using machine audition techniques, classifying it according to four categories: speech, music, environmental sounds and silence. Additionally, it determines the sound pressure level of the sensed Soundscape in dB(A)eq. This information is then broadcasted to the entire online social network of the user, allowing each element to visualize and audition a representation of the collected data. An individual record for each user is kept available in a webserver and can be accessed through an online application, displaying the continuous acoustic profile of each user along a timeline graph. The experimental procedure included three different test groups, forming each one a social network with a cluster coefficient equal to one. After the implementation and result analysis stages we concluded that Soundscapes can have a role in the Online Social Networking paradigm, specially when concerning mobile applications. Has been proven that current offthe- shelf mobile technology is a promising opportunity for accomplishing this kind of tasks (such as continuous monitoring, life logging and environment sensing) but battery limitations and multitasking's constraints are still the bottleneck, hindering the massification of successful applications. Additionally, online privacy is something that users are not enthusiastic in letting go: using captured sound instead of representations of the sound would abstain users from utilizing such applications. We also demonstrated that users who are more aware of the Soundscape concept are also more inclined to assume it as playing an important role in OSN. This means that more pedagogy towards the acoustic phenomenon is needed and this type of research gives a step further in that direction.O ambiente sonoro de um lugar é um eco da sua atividade e carácter, transportando, na maior parte da vezes, informação adicional àquela que é proporcionada à visão (quer seja redundante ou complementar). É, portanto, uma impressão digital acústica - tangível e volátil - do lugar a que pertence, ou simplesmente uma fotografia acústica de um evento pontual. A este opulento recurso, carregado de significados e subtilezas, Schafer chamou de Paisagem-Sonora. O projeto de investigação de carácter exploratório que aqui apresentamos visa o estudo da Paisagem-Sonora no contexto das Redes Sociais Móveis Em-Linha, procurando entender os moldes e limites da sua aplicação, tendo em vista o estabelecimento e/ou reforço de novos ou existente laços sociais, respectivamente. Para satisfazer este objectivo foi necessária uma abordagem multidisciplinar, ancorada em três pilares principais: a Paisagem-Sonora, o Som Móvel e as Redes Sociais. Estas três áreas determinaram a moldura científica de referência em que se enquadrou esta investigação, sendo explanadas na primeira parte da tese. Um extenso levantamento do estado-da-arte referente a projetos relacionados com este estudo é também apresentado, compilando exemplos de áreas distintas mas adjacentes, tais como: Computação Sensorial Móvel, Computação Vestível, Sonificação, Média Social e Computação Contexto-Dependente. Este levantamento veio confirmar quer a originalidade quer a pertinência científica do projeto apresentado. Posteriormente, a fim de avaliar o papel da Paisagem-Sonora no contexto das Redes Sociais, foi posto em prática um procedimento experimental baseado numa Rede Social Sonora Em-Linha, desenvolvida de raiz para dispositivos móveis e acrescida de mecanismos sensoriais para estímulos ambientais, capazes de analisar a Paisagem-Sonora envolvente e os movimentos do utilizador. Dois objectivos principais guiaram a produção desta ferramenta de investigação: recolher dados relativos à atividade cinética e sonora dos utilizadores e proporcionar a estes uma experiência real de utilização uma Rede Social Sonora, de modo a recolher opiniões fundamentadas sobre esta tipologia específica de socialização. A aplicação – Hurly-Burly – analisa a Paisagem-Sonora através de algoritmos de Audição Computacional, classificando- a de acordo com quatro categorias: diálogo (voz), música, sons ambientais (“ruídos”) e silêncio. Adicionalmente, determina o seu nível de pressão sonora em dB(A)eq. Esta informação é então distribuída pela rede social dos utilizadores, permitindo a cada elemento visualizar e ouvir uma representação do som analisado. É mantido num servidor Web um registo individual da informação sonora e cinética captada, o qual pode ser acedido através de uma aplicação Web que mostra o perfil sonoro de cada utilizador ao longo do tempo, numa visualização ao estilo linha-temporal. O procedimento experimental incluiu três grupos de teste distintos, formando cada um a sua própria rede social com coeficiente de aglomeração igual a um. Após a implementação da experiência e análise de resultados, concluímos que a Paisagem- Sonora pode desempenhar um papel no paradigma das Redes Sociais Em- Linha, em particular no que diz respeito à sua presença nos dispositivos móveis. Ficou provado que os dispositivos móveis comerciais da atualidade apresentam-se com uma oportunidade promissora para desempenhar este tipo de tarefas (tais como: monitorização contínua, registo quotidiano e análise sensorial ambiental), mas as limitações relacionadas com a autonomia energética e funcionamento em multitarefa representam ainda um constrangimento que impede a sua massificação. Além disso, a privacidade no mundo virtual é algo que os utilizadores atuais não estão dispostos a abdicar: partilhar continuamente a Paisagem-Sonora real em detrimento de uma representação de alto nível é algo que refrearia os utilizadores de usar a aplicação. Também demonstrámos que os utilizadores que mais conhecedores do fenómeno da Paisagem-Sonora são também os que consideram esta como importante no contexto das Redes Sociais Em-Linha. Isso significa que uma atitude pedagógica em relação ao fenómeno sonoro é essencial para obter dele o maior ganho possível. Esta investigação propõe-se a dar um passo em frente nessa direção

Women in Artificial intelligence (AI)

This Special Issue, entitled "Women in Artificial Intelligence" includes 17 papers from leading women scientists. The papers cover a broad scope of research areas within Artificial Intelligence, including machine learning, perception, reasoning or planning, among others. The papers have applications to relevant fields, such as human health, finance, or education. It is worth noting that the Issue includes three papers that deal with different aspects of gender bias in Artificial Intelligence. All the papers have a woman as the first author. We can proudly say that these women are from countries worldwide, such as France, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Australia, Bangladesh, Yemen, Romania, India, Cuba, Bangladesh and Spain. In conclusion, apart from its intrinsic scientific value as a Special Issue, combining interesting research works, this Special Issue intends to increase the invisibility of women in AI, showing where they are, what they do, and how they contribute to developments in Artificial Intelligence from their different places, positions, research branches and application fields. We planned to issue this book on the on Ada Lovelace Day (11/10/2022), a date internationally dedicated to the first computer programmer, a woman who had to fight the gender difficulties of her times, in the XIX century. We also thank the publisher for making this possible, thus allowing for this book to become a part of the international activities dedicated to celebrating the value of women in ICT all over the world. With this book, we want to pay homage to all the women that contributed over the years to the field of AI

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities