From Proprietary to High-Level Trigger-Action Programming Rules: A Natural Language Processing Approach

With the rise of popular task automation or IoT platforms such as 'If This Then That (IFTTT)', users can define rules to enable interactions between smart devices in their environment and thereby improve their daily lives. However, the rules authored via these platforms are usually tied to the platforms and sometimes even to the specific devices for which they have been defined. Therefore, when a user wishes to move to a different environment controlled by a different platform and/or devices, they need to recreate their rules for the new environment. The rise in the number of smart devices further adds to the complexity of rule authoring since users will have to navigate an ever-changing landscape of IoT devices. In order to address this problem, we need human-computer interaction that works across the boundaries of specific IoT platforms and devices. A step towards this human-computer interaction across platforms and devices is the introduction of a high-level semantic model for end-user IoT development, enabling users to create rules at a higher level of abstraction. However, many users who already got used to the rule representation in their favourite tool might be unwilling to learn and adapt to a new representation. We present a method for translating proprietary rules to a high-level semantic model by using natural language processing techniques. Our translation enables users to work with their familiar rule representation language and tool, and at the same time apply their rules across different IoT platforms and devices

Interactive Paper as a Mobile Client for a Multi-channel Web Information System

We describe how interactive paper can be used together with a multi-channel web information system to build a platform for experimenting with multi-modal context-aware mobile information services. As an application, we present a tourist guide for visitors to an international festival that was developed to investigate alternative modes of information delivery and interaction in mobile environments. The guide is based around a set of interactive paper documents—an event brochure, map and bookmark. The brochure and map are augmented with digital services by using a digital pen to activate links and a text-to-speech engine for information delivery. The digital pen is also used for data capture of event ratings and reviews. The bookmark provides access to advanced searches and ticket reservations. We describe the architecture and operation of the system, highlighting the challenges of extending a web information system to support both the generation of the paper documents and the interaction from these documents, alongside more traditional access channels. Finally, we discuss the range of context-aware interactions that is supported by our platfor

Context-aware platform for mobile data management

Interaction design is a major issue for mobile information systems in terms of not only the choice of input/output channels and presentation of information, but also the application of context-awareness. To support experimentation with these factors, we have developed platforms to support the rapid prototyping of multi-channel, multi-modal, context-aware applications. The Java-based platform presented here is based on an integration of a cross-media link server and an object-oriented framework for advanced content publishing, along with a Client Controller and Context Engine. We also describe how this platform was used to develop a mobile tourist information system for an international arts festival where interaction was based on a combination of interactive paper and speech outpu

Welcome to EICS 2016

[Extract] The ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS) is a yearly international conference devoted to engineering usable and reliable interactive computing systems. Research presented at EICS revolves around methods, processes, techniques and tools that support specifying, designing, developing, deploying and verifying interactive systems. This 8th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS'16) took place in Brussels, Belgium (21-24 June 2016) – at the heart of Europe...info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comparison of variant calling methods for whole genome sequencing data in dairy cattle

Accurate identification of SNPs from next-generation sequencing data is crucial for high-quality downstream analysis. Whole genome sequence data of 65 key ancestors of genotyped Swiss dairy populations were available for investigation (24 billion reads, 96.8% mapped to UMD31, 12x coverage). Four publically available variant calling programmes were assessed and different levels of pre-calling handling for each method were tested and compared. SNP concordance was examined with Illumina’s BovineHD Genotyping BeadChip®. Depending on variant calling software used, between 16,894,054 and 22,048,382 SNP were identified (multi-sample calling). A total of 14,644,310 SNP were identified by all four variant callers (multi-sample calling). InDel counts ranged from 1,997,791 to 2,857,754; 1,708,649 InDels were identified by all four variant callers. A minimum of pre-calling data handling resulted in the highest non-reference sensitivity and the lowest non-reference discrepancy rates

Genome-wide association studies of fertility and calving traits in Brown Swiss cattle using imputed whole-genome sequences

BACKGROUND: The detection of quantitative trait loci has accelerated with recent developments in genomics. The introduction of genomic selection in combination with sequencing efforts has made a large amount of genotypic data available. Functional traits such as fertility and calving traits have been included in routine genomic estimation of breeding values making large quantities of phenotypic data available for these traits. This data was used to investigate the genetics underlying fertility and calving traits and to identify potentially causative genomic regions and variants. We performed genome-wide association studies for 13 functional traits related to female fertility as well as for direct and maternal calving ease based on imputed whole-genome sequences. Deregressed breeding values from ~1000-5000 bulls per trait were used to test for associations with approximately 10 million imputed sequence SNPs. RESULTS: We identified a QTL on BTA17 associated with non-return rate at 56 days and with interval from first to last insemination. We found two significantly associated non-synonymous SNPs within this QTL region. Two more QTL for fertility traits were identified on BTA25 and 29. A single QTL was identified for maternal calving traits on BTA13 whereas three QTL on BTA19, 21 and 25 were identified for direct calving traits. The QTL on BTA19 co-localizes with the reported BH2 haplotype. The QTL on BTA25 is concordant for fertility and calving traits and co-localizes with a QTL previously reported to influence stature and related traits in Brown Swiss dairy cattle. CONCLUSION: The detection of QTL and their causative variants remains challenging. Combining comprehensive phenotypic data with imputed whole genome sequences seems promising. We present a QTL on BTA17 for female fertility in dairy cattle with two significantly associated non-synonymous SNPs, along with five additional QTL for fertility traits and calving traits. For all of these we fine mapped the regions and suggest candidate genes and candidate variants

Tacis annual report 1994. Report from the European Commission. COM (95) 349 final, 18 July 1994

. To improve the performance of web database access for regular users, we have developed a client caching agent, referred to as a personal assistant. In addition to caching strategies based on data characteristics and user specification, the personal assistant dynamically prefetches information based on previously monitored user access patterns. It is part of an overall multi-layered caching scheme where cache coherency is ensured through cooperation with a server-side database caching agent. The personal assistant has been implemented in Java and integrated into the web architecture for the OMS Pro database management system.