Interactive Remote Collaboration Using Augmented Reality

With the widespread deployment of fast data connections and availability of a variety of sensors for different modalities, the potential of remote collaboration has greatly increased. While the now ubiquitous video conferencing applications take advantage of some of these capabilities, the use of video between remote users is limited to passively watching disjoint video feeds and provides no means for interaction with the remote environment. However, collaboration often involves sharing, exploring, referencing, or even manipulating the physical world, and thus tools should provide support for these interactions.We suggest that augmented reality is an intuitive and user-friendly paradigm to communicate information about the physical environment, and that integration of computer vision and augmented reality facilitates more immersive and more direct interaction with the remote environment than what is possible with today's tools.In this dissertation, we present contributions to realizing this vision on several levels. First, we describe a conceptual framework for unobtrusive mobile video-mediated communication in which the remote user can explore the live scene independent of the local user's current camera movement, and can communicate information by creating spatial annotations that are immediately visible to the local user in augmented reality. Second, we describe the design and implementation of several, increasingly more flexible and immersive user interfaces and system prototypes that implement this concept. Our systems do not require any preparation or instrumentation of the environment; instead, the physical scene is tracked and modeled incrementally using monocular computer vision. The emerging model then supports anchoring of annotations, virtual navigation, and synthesis of novel views of the scene. Third, we describe the design, execution and analysis of three user studies comparing our prototype implementations with more conventional interfaces and/or evaluating specific design elements. Study participants overwhelmingly preferred our technology, and their task performance was significantly better compared with a video-only interface, though no task performance difference was observed compared with a ``static marker'' interface. Last, we address a particular technical limitation of current monocular tracking and mapping systems which was found to be impeding and present a conceptual solution; namely, we describe a concept and proof-of-concept implementation for automatic model selection which allows tracking and modeling to cope with both parallax-inducing and rotation-only camera movements.We suggest that our results demonstrate the maturity and usability of our systems, and, more importantly, the potential of our approach to improve video-mediated communication and broaden its applicability

When does charm turn sour in early career working relationships? The relationship between narcissism and Leader-Member and Member-Member Exchange

Internships offer the opportunity for students in higher education to have their first work experience and start building professional relationships. However, the ways in which these experiences and relationships unfold may differ significantly. In this study, we connect the dark side of personality to vocational behavior by examining the role of narcissism in early-career relationship building at work. Although narcissists often make a good first impression as being charming and extravert, this positive impression likely changes and turns negative after a period of time. While this effect has been shown in groups settings, it has yet to be replicated in a real organizational setting. We propose and test a three-way interaction model using data from interns who were rated in terms of their relationship qualities by their supervisor (leader-member exchange, LMX) and their colleagues (member-member exchange, MMX). Our results indicated no effect for the duration of the work relationship but an effect for groups size. Specifically, narcissistic interns working in smaller work groups were rated lower in LMX and MMX than those working in larger groups. These results have implications for future research on narcissism and the use of other ratings in organizational settings. They also have implications for the practice of hiring interns as members of staff

Ein HTS-Phosphorylierungs-Assay mittels Reflektometrischer Interferenzspektroskopie

Die Phosphorylierung ist ein übliches Verfahren zur Charakterisierung von Kinasen und geeigneten Substraten. Für die pharmazeutische Industrie sind neue Verbindungen von Interesse, die in der Lage sind, die Phosphorylierungsaktivität solcher Kinasen zu hemmen. Das Hochdurchsatzscreening hilft bei der Suche nach solchen Inhibitoren. Mit herkömmlichen Methoden wird die Menge des phosphorylierten Proteins bei einer Aktivitätsstudie durch den Einbau von radioaktivem Phosphor bestimmt. Anhand des Ausmaßes der Phosphorylierung kann auf die inhibierende Wirkung der untersuchten Substanzen geschlossen werden. Der Nachweis der Phosphorylierung mit einer markierungsfreien Methode wie der Reflektometrischen Interferenzspektroskopie (RIfS) bedeuten den angestrebten Verzicht auf den Umgang mit radioaktiven Isotopen und machen die Markierung als zusätzlichen Arbeits- und Kostenpunkt überflüssig. Die Reflektometrische Interferenzspektroskopie stellt eine neuartige Methode zur markierungsfreien Messung von Interaktionen zwischen ausreichend großen Reaktionspartnern dar. Mit Ihrer Hilfe kann die spezifische Bindung an eine Sensoroberfläche über den Zuwachs der optischen Schichtdickenänderung ausreichend schnell, reproduzierbar und zuverlässig untersucht werden. Dabei besteht mit Hilfe des hier verwendeten Prototyps die Möglichkeit, in einer Mikrotiterplatte 96 Wells simultan zu vermessen und somit ein Screening von Substanzbibliotheken durchzuführen

Interactive Remote Collaboration Using Augmented Reality

With the widespread deployment of fast data connections and availability of a variety of sensors for different modalities, the potential of remote collaboration has greatly increased. While the now ubiquitous video conferencing applications take advantage of some of these capabilities, the use of video between remote users is limited to passively watching disjoint video feeds and provides no means for interaction with the remote environment. However, collaboration often involves sharing, exploring, referencing, or even manipulating the physical world, and thus tools should provide support for these interactions.We suggest that augmented reality is an intuitive and user-friendly paradigm to communicate information about the physical environment, and that integration of computer vision and augmented reality facilitates more immersive and more direct interaction with the remote environment than what is possible with today's tools.In this dissertation, we present contributions to realizing this vision on several levels. First, we describe a conceptual framework for unobtrusive mobile video-mediated communication in which the remote user can explore the live scene independent of the local user's current camera movement, and can communicate information by creating spatial annotations that are immediately visible to the local user in augmented reality. Second, we describe the design and implementation of several, increasingly more flexible and immersive user interfaces and system prototypes that implement this concept. Our systems do not require any preparation or instrumentation of the environment; instead, the physical scene is tracked and modeled incrementally using monocular computer vision. The emerging model then supports anchoring of annotations, virtual navigation, and synthesis of novel views of the scene. Third, we describe the design, execution and analysis of three user studies comparing our prototype implementations with more conventional interfaces and/or evaluating specific design elements. Study participants overwhelmingly preferred our technology, and their task performance was significantly better compared with a video-only interface, though no task performance difference was observed compared with a ``static marker'' interface. Last, we address a particular technical limitation of current monocular tracking and mapping systems which was found to be impeding and present a conceptual solution; namely, we describe a concept and proof-of-concept implementation for automatic model selection which allows tracking and modeling to cope with both parallax-inducing and rotation-only camera movements.We suggest that our results demonstrate the maturity and usability of our systems, and, more importantly, the potential of our approach to improve video-mediated communication and broaden its applicability

Agglomerative clustering in sparse atomic decompositions of audio signals

We present a correlation-based algorithm for the agglomerative clus-tering of atoms in sparse atomic decompositions of audio signals. Our goal is to demonstrate useful relationships between elements of the decomposition and the content of the original signal, for such purposes as analysis and modification. We evaluate the performance of the agglomeration algorithm using decompositions of synthetic and real audio signals, and discuss possible extensions of this work. Index Terms — Clustering methods, signal analysis, signal res-olution, time-frequency analysis. 1