40,552 research outputs found
A pathway to independence : wayfinding systems which adapt to a visually impaired person's context
Despite an increased amount of technologies and systems designed to address the navigational requirements of the visually impaired community of approximately 7.4 million in Europe, current research has failed to sufficiently address the human issues associated to their design and use. As more types of sensing technologies are developed to facilitate visually impaired travellers for different navigational purposes (local vs. distant and indoor vs. outdoor), an effective process of synchronisation is required. This synchronisation is represented through context-aware computing, which allows contextual information to not just be sensed (like most current wayfinding systems), but also adapted, discovered and augmented. In this paper, three user studies concerning the suitability of different types of navigational information for visually impaired and sighted people are described. For such systems to be effective, human cognitive maps, models and intentions need to be the focus of further research, in order to provide information that is tailored to a user's task, situation or environment. Methodologies aimed at establishing these issues need to be demonstrated through a multidisciplinary framework
Investigating the use of semantic technologies in spatial mapping applications
Semantic Web Technologies are ideally suited to build context-aware information retrieval applications. However, the geospatial aspect of context awareness presents unique challenges such as the semantic modelling of geographical references for efficient handling of spatial queries, the reconciliation of the heterogeneity at the semantic and geo-representation levels, maintaining the quality of service and scalability of communicating, and the efficient rendering of the spatial queries' results. In this paper, we describe the modelling decisions taken to solve these challenges by analysing our implementation of an intelligent planning and recommendation tool that provides location-aware advice for a specific application domain. This paper contributes to the methodology of integrating heterogeneous geo-referenced data into semantic knowledgebases, and also proposes mechanisms for efficient spatial interrogation of the semantic knowledgebase and optimising the rendering of the dynamically retrieved context-relevant information on a web frontend
AmIE: An Ambient Intelligent Environment for Assisted Living
In the modern world of technology Internet-of-things (IoT) systems strives to
provide an extensive interconnected and automated solutions for almost every
life aspect. This paper proposes an IoT context-aware system to present an
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment; such as an apartment, house, or a
building; to assist blind, visually-impaired, and elderly people. The proposed
system aims at providing an easy-to-utilize voice-controlled system to locate,
navigate and assist users indoors. The main purpose of the system is to provide
indoor positioning, assisted navigation, outside weather information, room
temperature, people availability, phone calls and emergency evacuation when
needed. The system enhances the user's awareness of the surrounding environment
by feeding them with relevant information through a wearable device to assist
them. In addition, the system is voice-controlled in both English and Arabic
languages and the information are displayed as audio messages in both
languages. The system design, implementation, and evaluation consider the
constraints in common types of premises in Kuwait and in challenges, such as
the training needed by the users. This paper presents cost-effective
implementation options by the adoption of a Raspberry Pi microcomputer,
Bluetooth Low Energy devices and an Android smart watch.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
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Multimodal and ubiquitous computing systems: supporting independent-living older users
We document the rationale and design of a multimodal interface to a pervasive/ubiquitous computing system that supports independent living by older people in their own homes. The Millennium Home system involves fitting a resident’s home with sensors – these sensors can be used to trigger sequences of interaction with the resident to warn them about dangerous events, or to check if they need external help. We draw lessons from the design process and conclude the paper with implications for the design of multimodal interfaces to ubiquitous systems developed for the elderly and in healthcare, as well as for more general ubiquitous computing applications
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Geovisualization of dynamics, movement and change: key issues and developing approaches in visualization research
Smart objects as building blocks for the internet of things
The combination of the Internet and emerging technologies such as nearfield communications, real-time localization, and embedded sensors lets us transform everyday objects into smart objects that can understand and react to their environment. Such objects are building blocks for the Internet of Things and enable novel computing applications. As a step toward design and architectural principles for smart objects, the authors introduce a hierarchy of architectures with increasing levels of real-world awareness and interactivity. In particular, they describe activity-, policy-, and process-aware smart objects and demonstrate how the respective architectural abstractions support increasingly complex application
Inviwo -- A Visualization System with Usage Abstraction Levels
The complexity of today's visualization applications demands specific
visualization systems tailored for the development of these applications.
Frequently, such systems utilize levels of abstraction to improve the
application development process, for instance by providing a data flow network
editor. Unfortunately, these abstractions result in several issues, which need
to be circumvented through an abstraction-centered system design. Often, a high
level of abstraction hides low level details, which makes it difficult to
directly access the underlying computing platform, which would be important to
achieve an optimal performance. Therefore, we propose a layer structure
developed for modern and sustainable visualization systems allowing developers
to interact with all contained abstraction levels. We refer to this interaction
capabilities as usage abstraction levels, since we target application
developers with various levels of experience. We formulate the requirements for
such a system, derive the desired architecture, and present how the concepts
have been exemplary realized within the Inviwo visualization system.
Furthermore, we address several specific challenges that arise during the
realization of such a layered architecture, such as communication between
different computing platforms, performance centered encapsulation, as well as
layer-independent development by supporting cross layer documentation and
debugging capabilities
User-centred design of flexible hypermedia for a mobile guide: Reflections on the hyperaudio experience
A user-centred design approach involves end-users from the very beginning. Considering users at the early stages compels designers to think in terms of utility and usability and helps develop the system on what is actually needed. This paper discusses the case of HyperAudio, a context-sensitive adaptive and mobile guide to museums developed in the late 90s. User requirements were collected via a survey to understand visitors’ profiles and visit styles in Natural Science museums. The knowledge acquired supported the specification of system requirements, helping defining user model, data structure and adaptive behaviour of the system. User requirements guided the design decisions on what could be implemented by using simple adaptable triggers and what instead needed more sophisticated adaptive techniques, a fundamental choice when all the computation must be done on a PDA. Graphical and interactive environments for developing and testing complex adaptive systems are discussed as a further
step towards an iterative design that considers the user interaction a central point. The paper discusses
how such an environment allows designers and developers to experiment with different system’s behaviours and to widely test it under realistic conditions by simulation of the actual context evolving over time. The understanding gained in HyperAudio is then considered in the perspective of the
developments that followed that first experience: our findings seem still valid despite the passed time
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