T4Tags 2.0: a tool to support the serendipitous use of domestic technologies

The authors present an iterative design exploration to support serendipitous uses of technology: quick reconfigurations of the domestic environment to address inhabitants' current needs, whether they are transient and ephemeral or more habitual. As a result of this exploration, the authors developed T4Tags 2.0, an open-ended toolkit for programming Web-connected and versatile physical tokens embedded with different sensing technologies (including near field communication, physical buttons, and motion and environmental sensors) and can be easily integrated with existing artifacts. The design of the toolkit was informed by fieldwork that provided design drivers for domestic technologies that can be repurposed or appropriated through features such as end-user programming of device behavior and crowd-fueled appropriation by sharing "recipes" of programmed tokens. A user study with three families provides insights into system usefulness and the recipe-sharing functionality. The authors also discuss opportunities and challenges, reflecting on the tradeoffs of an open system in terms of user engagement, creative input, and real-world deployment. This article is part of a special issue on domestic pervasive computing.This research has been partially funded by the 2015 UC3M Post-Doc Mobility Scholarship and by the Academy of Finland (286440, Evidence

The determinants of Public Grants and Venture Capital financing: Evidence from Europe

This monograph compares the characteristics of firms supported by public and private sources of early-stage financing to investigate funding patterns for innovative companies. We examine whether the two sources of funding target similar firms using a portfolio approach on EU-based firms raising either Venture Capital financing, public grants under the Horizon 2020 ‘SME Instrument’ scheme, or both in the period 2008-2017. Our findings show that venture capitalists fund more innovative and younger firms, whereas public investors finance smaller companies. This pattern is supported by robustness checks and expansions that address multiple dimensions of heterogeneity behaviors in the interaction of private and public funding

A comprehensive framework for the rapid prototyping of ubiquitous interaction

In the interaction between humans and computational systems, many advances have been made in terms of hardware (e.g., smart devices with embedded sensors and multi-touch surfaces) and software (e.g., algorithms for the detection and tracking of touches, gestures and full body movements). Now that we have the computational power and devices to manage interactions between the physical and the digital world, the question is—what should we do? For the Human-Computer Interaction research community answering to this question means to materialize Mark Weiser’s vision of Ubiquitous Computing. In the desktop computing paradigm, the desktop metaphor is implemented by a graphical user interface operated via mouse and keyboard. Users are accustomed to employing artificial control devices whose operation has to be learned and they interact in an environment that inhibits their faculties. For example the mouse is a device that allows movements in a two dimensional space, thus limiting the twenty three degrees of freedom of the human’s hand. The Ubiquitous Computing is an evolution in the history of computation: it aims at making the interface disappear and integrating the information processing into everyday objects with computational capabilities. In this way humans would no more be forced to adapt to machines but, instead, the technology will harmonize with the surrounding environment. Conversely from the desktop case, ubiquitous systems make use of heterogeneous Input/Output devices (e.g., motion sensors, cameras and touch surfaces among others) and interaction techniques such as touchless, multi-touch, and tangible. By reducing the physical constraints in interaction, ubiquitous technologies can enable interfaces that endow more expressive power (e.g., free-hand gestures) and, therefore, such technologies are expected to provide users with better tools to think, create and communicate. It appears clear that approaches based on classical user interfaces from the desktop computing world do not fit with ubiquitous needs, for they were thought for a single user who is interacting with a single computing systems, seated at his workstation and looking at a vertical screen. To overcome the inadequacy of the existing paradigm, new models started to be developed that enable users to employ their skills effortlessly and lower the cognitive burden of interaction with computational machines. Ubiquitous interfaces are pervasive and thus invisible to its users, or they become invisible with successive interactions in which the users feel they are instantly and continuously successful. All the benefits advocated by ubiquitous interaction, like the invisible interface and a more natural interaction, come at a price: the design and development of interactive systems raise new conceptual and practical challenges. Ubiquitous systems communicate with the real world by means of sensors, emitters and actuators. Sensors convert real world inputs into digital data, while emitters and actuators are mostly used to provide digital or physical feedback (e.g., a speaker emitting sounds). Employing such variety of hardware devices in a real application can be difficult because their use requires knowledge of underneath physics and many hours of programming work. Furthermore, data integration can be cumbersome, for any device vendor uses different programming interfaces and communication protocols. All these factors make the rapid prototyping of ubiquitous systems a challenging task. Prototyping is a pivoting activity to foster innovation and creativity through the exploration of a design space. Nevertheless, while there are many prototyping tools and guidelines for traditional user interfaces, very few solutions have been developed for a holistic prototyping of ubiquitous systems. The tremendous amount of different input devices, interaction techniques and physical environments envisioned by researchers produces a severe challenge from the point of view of general and comprehensive development tools. All of this makes it difficult to work in a design and development space where practitioners need to be familiar with different related subjects, involving software and hardware. Moreover, the technological context is further complicated by the fact that many of the ubiquitous technologies have recently grown from an embryonic stage and are still in a process of maturation; thus they lack of stability, reliability and homogeneity. For these reasons, it is compelling to develop tools support to the programming of ubiquitous interaction. In this thesis work this particular topic is addressed. The goal is to develop a general conceptual and software framework that makes use of hardware abstraction to lighten the prototyping process in the design of ubiquitous systems. The thesis is that, by abstracting from low-level details, it is possible to provide unified, coherent and consistent access to interacting devices independently of their implementation or communication protocols. In this dissertation the existing literature is revised and is pointed out that there is a need in the art of frameworks that provide such a comprehensive and integrate support. Moreover, the objectives and the methodology to fulfill them, together with the major contributions of this work are described. Finally, the design of the proposed framework, its development in the form of a set of software libraries, its evaluation with real users and a use case are presented. Through the evaluation and the use case it has been demonstrated that by encompassing heterogeneous devices into a unique design it is possible to reduce user efforts to develop interaction in ubiquitous environments. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------En la interacción entre personas y sistemas de computación se han realizado muchos adelantos por lo que concierne el hardware (p.ej., dispositivos inteligentes con sensores integrados y superficies táctiles) y el software (p.ej., algoritmos para el reconocimiento y rastreo de puntos de contactos, gestos de manos y movimientos corporales). Ahora que se dispone del poder computacional y de los dispositivos para proporcionar una interacción entre el mundo fisico y el mundo digital, la pregunta es—que se debería hacer? Contestar a esta pregunta, para la comunidad de investigación en la Interacción Persona-Ordenador, significa hacer realidad la visión de Mark Weiser sobre la Computación Ubicua. En el paradigma de computación de escritorio, la metáfora del escritorio se implementa a través de la interfaz gráfica de usuario con la que se interactúa a través de teclado y ratón. En este paradigma, los usuarios se adaptan a utilizar dispositivos artificiales, cuyas operaciones deben ser aprendidas, y a interactuar en un entorno que inhibe sus capacidades. Por ejemplo, el ratón es un dispositivo que permite movimientos en dos dimensiones, por tanto limita los veintitrés grados de libertad de una mano. La Computación Ubicua se considera como una evolución en la historia de la computación: su objetivo es hacer que la interfaz desaparezca e integrar el procesamiento de la información en los objetos cotidianos, provistos de capacidad de computo. De esta forma, el usuario no se vería forzado a adaptarse a la maquinas sino que la tecnología se integrarían directamente con el entorno. A diferencia de los sistemas de sobremesa, los sistemas ubicuos utilizan dispositivos de entrada/salida heterogéneos (p.ej., sensores de movimiento, cameras y superficies táctiles entre otros) y técnicas de interacción como la interacción sin tocar, multitáctil o tangible. Reduciendo las limitaciones físicas en la interacción, las tecnologías ubicuas permiten la creación de interfaces con un mayor poder de expresión (p.ej., gestos con las manos) y, por lo tanto, se espera que proporcionen a los usuarios mejores herramientas para pensar, crear y comunicar. Parece claro que las soluciones basadas en las interfaces clásicas no satisfacen las necesidades de la interacción ubicua, porque están pensadas por un único usuario que interactúa con un único sistema de computación, sentado a su mesa de trabajo y mirando una pantalla vertical. Para superar las deficiencias del paradigma de escritorio, se empezaron a desarrollar nuevos modelos de interacción que permitiesen a los usuarios emplear sin esfuerzo sus capacidades innatas y adquiridas y reducir la carga cognitiva de las interfaces clásicas. Las interfaces ubicuas son pervasivas y, por lo tanto, invisibles a sus usuarios, o devienen invisibles a través de interacciones sucesivas en las que los usuarios siempre se sienten que están teniendo éxito. Todos los beneficios propugnados por la interacción ubicua, como la interfaz invisible o una interacción mas natural, tienen un coste: el diseño y el desarrollo de sistemas de interacción ubicua introducen nuevos retos conceptuales y prácticos. Los sistemas ubicuos comunican con el mundo real a través de sensores y emisores. Los sensores convierten las entradas del mundo real en datos digitales, mientras que los emisores se utilizan principalmente para proporcionar una retroalimentación digital o física (p.ej., unos altavoces que emiten un sonido). Emplear una gran variedad de dispositivos hardware en una aplicación real puede ser difícil, porque su uso requiere conocimiento de física y muchas horas de programación. Además, la integración de los datos puede ser complicada, porque cada proveedor de dispositivos utiliza diferentes interfaces de programación y protocolos de comunicación. Todos estos factores hacen que el prototipado rápido de sistemas ubicuos sea una tarea que constituye un difícil reto en la actualidad. El prototipado es una actividad central para promover la innovación y la creatividad a través de la exploración de un espacio de diseño. Sin embargo, a pesar de que existan muchas herramientas y líneas guías para el prototipado de las interfaces de escritorio, a día de hoy han sido desarrolladas muy pocas soluciones para un prototipado holístico de la interacción ubicua. La enorme cantidad de dispositivos de entrada, técnicas de interacción y entornos físicos concebidos por los investigadores supone un gran desafío desde el punto de vista de un entorno general e integral. Todo esto hace que sea difícil trabajar en un espacio de diseño y desarrollo en el que los profesionales necesitan tener conocimiento de diferentes materias relacionadas con temas de software y hardware. Además, el contexto tecnológico se complica por el hecho que muchas de estas tecnologías ubicuas acaban de salir de un estadio embrionario y están todavía en un proceso de desarrollo; por lo tanto faltan de estabilidad, fiabilidad y homogeneidad. Por estos motivos es fundamental desarrollar herramientas que soporten el proceso de prototipado de la interacción ubicua. Este trabajo de tesis doctoral se dedica a este problema. El objetivo es desarrollar una arquitectura conceptual y software que utilice un nivel de abstracción del hardware para hacer mas fácil el proceso de prototipado de sistemas de interacción ubicua. La tesis es que, abstrayendo de los detalles de bajo nivel, es posible proporcionar un acceso unificado, consistente y coherente a los dispositivos de interacción independientemente de su implementación y de los protocolos de comunicación. En esta tesis doctoral se revisa la literatura existente y se pone de manifiesto la necesidad de herramientas y marcos que proporcionen dicho soporte global e integrado. Además, se describen los objetivos propuestos, la metodología para alcanzarlos y las contribuciones principales de este trabajo. Finalmente, se presentan el diseño del marco conceptual, así como su desarrollo en forma de un conjunto de librerías software, su evaluación con usuarios reales y un caso de uso. A través de la evaluación y del caso de uso se ha demostrado que considerando dispositivos heterogéneos en un único diseño es posible reducir los esfuerzos de los usuarios para desarrollar la interacción en entornos ubicuos

Augmenting objects at home through programmable sensor tokens: A design journey

End-user development for the home has been gaining momentum in research. Previous works demonstrate feasibility and potential but there is a lack of analysis of the extent of technology needed and its impact on the diversity of activities that can be supported. We present a design exploration with a tangible end-user toolkit for programming smart tokens embedding different sensing technologies. Our system allows to augment physical objects with smart tags and use trigger-action programming with multiple triggers to define smart behaviors. We contribute through a field-oriented study that provided insights on (i) household's activities as emerging from people's lived experience in terms of high-level goals, their ephemerality or recurrence, and the types of triggers, actions and interactions with augmented objects, and (ii) the programmability needed for supporting desired behaviors. We conclude that, while trigger action covers most scenarios, more advanced programming and direct interaction with physical objects spur novel uses.This work was supported by the 2015 UC3M Mobility Grant, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (TIN2014-56534-R, CREAx) and by the Academy of Finland (286440, Evidence)

ECCE Toolkit: Prototyping Sensor-Based Interaction

Building and exploring physical user interfaces requires high technical skills and hours of specialized work. The behavior of multiple devices with heterogeneous input/output channels and connectivity has to be programmed in a context where not only the software interface matters, but also the hardware components are critical (e.g., sensors and actuators). Prototyping physical interaction is hindered by the challenges of: (1) programming interactions among physical sensors/actuators and digital interfaces; (2) implementing functionality for different platforms in different programming languages; and (3) building custom electronic-incorporated objects. We present ECCE (Entities, Components, Couplings and Ecosystems), a toolkit for non-programmers that copes with these issues by abstracting from low-level implementations, thus lowering the complexity of prototyping small-scale, sensor-based physical interfaces to support the design process. A user evaluation provides insights and use cases of the kind of applications that can be developed with the toolkit.This research project has been partially funded by the EU FP7 project meSch (Grant agreement 600851) and national Spanish project CREAx (TIN2014-56534-R). We thank participants of the TEI 2014 studio and the DEI Laboratory staff and students at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid for their valuable feedback

Light on horizontal interactive surfaces: Input space for tabletop computing

In the last 25 years we have witnessed the rise and growth of interactive tabletop research, both in academic and in industrial settings. The rising demand for the digital support of human activities motivated the need to bring computational power to table surfaces. In this article, we review the state of the art of tabletop computing, highlighting core aspects that frame the input space of interactive tabletops: (a) developments in hardware technologies that have caused the proliferation of interactive horizontal surfaces and (b) issues related to new classes of interaction modalities (multitouch, tangible, and touchless). A classification is presented that aims to give a detailed view of the current development of this research area and define opportunities and challenges for novel touch- and gesture-based interactions between the human and the surrounding computational environment. © 2014 ACM.This work has been funded by Integra (Amper Sistemas and CDTI, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) and TIPEx (TIN2010-19859-C03-01) projects and Programa de Becas y Ayudas para la Realización de Estudios Oficiales de Máster y Doctorado en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2010

The Rapid Warming of the North Atlantic Ocean in the Mid-1990s in an Eddy-Permitting Ocean Reanalysis (1982–2013)

Abstract The rapid warming in the mid-1990s in the North Atlantic Ocean is investigated by means of an eddy-permitting ocean reanalysis. Both the mean state and variability, including the mid-1990s warming event, are well captured by the reanalysis. An ocean heat budget applied to the subpolar gyre (SPG) region (50°–66°N, 60°–10°W) shows that the 1995–99 rapid warming is primarily dictated by changes in the heat transport convergence term while the surface heat fluxes appear to play a minor role. The mean negative temperature increment suggests a warm bias in the model and data assimilation corrects the mean state of the model, but it is not crucial to reconstruct the time variability of the upper-ocean temperature. The decomposition of the heat transport across the southern edge of the SPG into time-mean and time-varying components shows that the SPG warming is mainly associated with both the anomalous advection of mean temperature and the mean advection of temperature anomalies across the 50°N zonal section. The relative contributions of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and gyre circulation to the heat transport are also analyzed. It is shown that both the overturning and gyre components are relevant to the mid-1990s warming. In particular, the fast adjustment of the barotropic circulation response to the NAO drives the anomalous transport of mean temperature at the subtropical/subpolar boundary, while the slowly evolving AMOC feeds the large-scale advection of thermal anomalies across 50°N. The persistently positive phase of the NAO during the years prior to the rapid warming likely favored the cross-gyre heat transfer and the following SPG warming