SABACO: Extensiones a los Algoritmos de Optimización basados en Colonias de Hormigas para la Toma de Decisiones Influenciada por Emociones y el Aprendizaje de Secuencias Contextuales en Ambientes Inteligentes

En el trabajo que presentamos en esta tesis hacemos inicialmente una revisión de cómo ha ido evolucionando la interacción hombre máquina en el contexto de la computación, desde los primeros y escasos computadores hasta el momento actual, en el que los avances tecnológicos han permitido que, en muchos de los escenarios en los que se desarrolla nuestra vida diaria, estemos rodeados de diversos dispositivos electrónicos con los que interactuamos para hacer uso de alguno de los servicios que ofrecen. Veremos cómo esta difusión tecnológica ha introducido los sistemas de información en ámbitos más allá del contexto del trabajo, como la educación o el hogar, haciendo necesario que se tenga en cuenta en el diseño de los sistemas no sólo la funcionalidad o facilidad de uso sino también otros factores como la experiencia de uso o las emociones que siente una persona al interactuar con el sistema. Además, ha dado lugar a la aparición de los conocidos como ambientes inteligentes, en los que son los sistemas presentes en el entorno los que deben adaptarse al usuario y al contexto en el que se encuentra, adaptación que, dados los nuevos contextos en los tiene lugar la interacción con el usuario, plantea algunos retos. En particular, en el presente trabajo identificamos dos factores clave que los ambientes inteligentes deben tener en cuenta para tomar las decisiones y llevar a cabo las acciones adecuadas para conseguir una mejor adaptación al usuario y al contexto. Estos factores son la influencia de las emociones en la interacción y la utilización de la información contextual histórica. Por ello hacemos una revisión tanto de las propuestas de sistemas de decisión influenciados por emociones existentes en el área de la computación afectiva, como de las propuestas de sistemas sensibles al contexto, mostrando propuestas basadas en sistemas multiagente, redes neuronales, modelos ocultos de Markov, e introduciendo las técnicas metaheurísticas. Recientemente parece haber un sentimiento en la comunidad investigadora sobre la necesidad de aproximaciones híbridas para resolver problemas reales, no existe por desgracia una base sistemática que describa de forma rigurosa como proceder para combinar las distintas aproximaciones existentes.Mocholí Agües, JA. (2011). SABACO: Extensiones a los Algoritmos de Optimización basados en Colonias de Hormigas para la Toma de Decisiones Influenciada por Emociones y el Aprendizaje de Secuencias Contextuales en Ambientes Inteligentes [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/11225Palanci

On the performance of ACO-based methods in p2p resource discovery

Over the recent years peer-to-peer (p2p) systems have become increasingly popular. As of today most ofthe internet IP traffic is already transmitted in this format and still it is said to double in volume till 2014.Most p2p systems, however, are not pure serverless solutions, nor is the searching in those networkshighly efficient, usually achieved by simple flooding. In order to confront with the growing traffic wemust consider more elaborate search mechanisms and far less centralized environments. An effectiveproposal to this problem is to solve it in the domain of ant colony optimization metaheuristics. In thispaper we present an overview of ACO algorithms that offer the best potential in this field, under the strictrequirements and limitations of a pure p2p network. We design several experiments to serve as an evalu-ation platform for the mentioned algorithms to conclude the features of a high quality approach. Finally,we consider two hybrid extensions to the classical algorithms, in order to examine their contribution tothe overall quality robustness.© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and Innovation under the National Strategic Program of Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation (I+D+i) project TIN2010-20488. Kamil Krynicki is supported by a FPI fellowship from Universidad Politecnica de Valencia.Krynicki, KK.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Mocholí Agües, JA. (2013). On the performance of ACO-based methods in p2p resource discovery. Applied Soft Computing. 13(12):4813-4831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2013.07.022S48134831131

Ant colony optimisation for resource searching in dynamic peer-to-peer grids

The applicability of peer-to-peer (p2p) in the domain of grid computing has been an important subject over the past years. Nevertheless, the sole merger between p2p and the concept of grid is not sufficient to guarantee non-trivial efficiency. Some claim that ant colony optimisation (ACO) algorithms might provide a definite answer to this question. However, the use of ACO in grid networks causes several problems. The first and foremost stems out of the fact that ACO algorithms usually perform well under the conditions of static networks, solving predetermined problems in a known and bound space. The question that remains to be answered is whether the evolutive component of these algorithms is able to cope with changing conditions; and by those we mean changes both in the positive sense, such as the appearance of new resources, but also in the negative sense, such as the disappearance or failure of fragments of the network. In this paper we study these considerations in depth, bearing in mind the specificity of the peer-to-peer nature.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and Innovation under the National Strategic Programme of Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation (I+D+i) and project TIN 2010-20488. Kamil Krynicki is supported by the FPI Fellowship from Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.Krynicki, K.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Mocholí Agües, JA. (2014). Ant colony optimisation for resource searching in dynamic peer-to-peer grids. International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation. 6(3):153-165. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBIC.2014.062634S1531656

A multicriteria ant colony algorithm for generating music playlists

In this paper we address the problem of music playlist generation based on the user-personalized specification of context information. We propose a generic semantic multicriteria ant colony algorithm capable of dealing with domain-specific problems by the use of ontologies. It also employs any associated metadata defined in the search space to feed its solution-building process and considers any restrictions the user may have specified. An example is given of the use of the algorithm for the problem of automatic generation of music playlists, some experimental results are presented and the behavior of the approach is explained in different situations. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under the funding project CENIT-MIOI CENIT-2008 1019 and by the Microsoft Research Labs (Cambridge) under the "Create, Play and Learn" program.Mocholi Agües, JA.; Martinez Valero, VM.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Catalá Bolós, A. (2012). A multicriteria ant colony algorithm for generating music playlists. Expert Systems with Applications. 39(3):2270-2278. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2011.07.131S2270227839

AGORAS: Exploring Creative Learning on Tangible User Interfaces

Departing from creative learning foundations, this paper discusses on the suitability of interactive tables as a grounding technology to support creative learning for several reasons: support for social learning, because the subjects share a physical space as in traditional non-digital technologies; communication during the creative, experimental and reflexive process is direct and not computer-mediated; and subjects can carry out the task in parallel on the same surface. Considering reflection, discussion and creation processes in a loop, an experiment with teenagers has been conducted comparing a digital-based against a pure tangible tabletop in a task of creating entities consisting of blocks and joint elements. This preliminary study, designed to obtain initial insights about whether the grounding technology may become a promising tool to support creative learning, explores some aspects such as productivity, complexity of designs and concurrent comanipulation. The results showed that subjects were more productive in terms of the number of solutions obtained using the non computer-mediated approach. However using the digital tabletop approach subjects design, on average, more complex or elaborate solutions in terms of the number of involved bodies and joints. Finally, an important finding was that teams established more frequently concurrent cooperation schemes in the digital tabletop condition by sharing more effectively the creation space.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and Innovation under the National Strategic Program of Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation (I+D+i) and project TSI2010-20488. Our thanks to the Alaquas city council and the clubhouse’s managers. Thanks also to the team Polimedia of the office “Área de Información y Comunicaciones” (ASIC) for the support in computer hardware. A. Catalá is supported by a FPU fellowship from the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain with reference AP2006-00181.Catalá Bolós, A.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Martínez-Villaronga, A.; Mocholí Agües, JA. (2011). AGORAS: Exploring Creative Learning on Tangible User Interfaces. En Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC), 2011 IEEE 35th Annual. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 326-335. https://doi.org/10.1109/COMPSAC.2011.50S32633

A meta-model for dataflow-based rules in smart environments: Evaluating user comprehension and performance

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of Computer Programming Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of Computer Programming, [Volume 78, Issue 10, 1 October 2013, Pages 1930–1950] DOI 10.1016/j.scico.2012.06.010A considerable part of the behavior in smart environments relies on event-driven and rule specification. Rules are the mechanism most often used to enable user customization of the environment. However, the expressiveness of the rules available to users in editing and other tools is usually either limited or the available rule editing interfaces are not designed for end-users with low skills in programming. This means we have to look for interaction techniques and new ways to define user customization rules. This paper describes a generic and flexible meta-model to support expressive rules enhanced with data flow expressions that will graphically support the definition of rules without writing code. An empirical study was conducted on the ease of understanding of the visual data flow expressions, which are the key elements in our rule proposal. The visual dataflow language was compared to its corresponding textual version in terms of comprehension and ease of learning by teenagers in exercises involving calculations, modifications, writing and detecting equivalences in expressions in both languages. Although the subjects had some previous experience in editing mathematical expressions on spreadsheets, the study found their performance with visual dataflows to be significantly better in calculation and modification exercises. This makes our dataflow approach a promising mechanism for expressing user-customized reactive behavior in Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environments. The performance of the rule matching processor was validated by means of two stress tests to ensure that the meta-model approach adopted would be able to scale up with the number of types and instances in the space. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education under the National Strategic Program of Research and Project TSI2010-20488. Our thanks also go to the high school "Collegi Parroquial D. Jose Lluch - Alboraya", especially to the teachers and students that participated in the empirical study reported in this paper. A. Catala is supported by an FPU fellowship from the Ministry of Education of Spain with reference AP2006-00181.Catalá Bolós, A.; Pons, P.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Mocholi Agües, JA.; Navarro Martínez, EM. (2013). A meta-model for dataflow-based rules in smart environments: Evaluating user comprehension and performance. Science of Computer Programming. 78(10):1930-1950. doi:10.1016/j.scico.2012.06.010S19301950781

Exploring Direct Communication and Manipulation on Interactive Surfaces to Foster Novelty in a Creative Learning Environment

[EN] Information technology has supported learning in many different ways as improvements in communication, virtual environment embodiment and even mobility has allowed remote discussion and collaboration in exploring topics and developing ideas. However, learning environments often lack validation studies related to the grounding technology being used and do not consider creativity as a factor despite being essential for ideas generation and innovation processes which push human development. Moreover, computer-mediated communication quite often limits the effective expression of ideas between peers because technology may be a barrier rather than an aid. Taking this into consideration, this paper proposes the use of interactive surfaces as a promising technology to develop future creative learning environments. An exploratory experiment with 22 teenagers has been conducted. The experiment consisted of reflection, discussion and creation processes in which participants created entities with basic building blocks. The environment based on the interactive surface was compared to a completely tangible approach based on a tabletop with wooden blocks. A creativity model is used in the evaluation in terms of novelty, flexibility and fluency of thinking and motivation. The results showed that creations' novelty is significantly higher in the digital environment and also higher collaboration degree was observed so that this technology should be considered in the development of future learning environments to support creativity.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education under project TSI2010-20488. Our thanks to the Alaquas city council, the clubhouse’s managers, and also to Polimedia for the support in computer hardware. A. Catalá is supported by a FPU fellowship with reference AP2006-00181.Catalá Bolós, A.; García Sanjuan, F.; Azorín Vicente, JP.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Mocholi Agües, JA. (2012). Exploring Direct Communication and Manipulation on Interactive Surfaces to Foster Novelty in a Creative Learning Environment. International Journal of Computer Science Research and Application. 2(1):15-24. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/35236S15242

Una plataforma para el soporte de museos híbridos

Mocholi Agües, JA. (2004). Una plataforma para el soporte de museos híbridos. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/8846.Archivo delegad

Digital ants as the best cicerones for museum visitors

In this paper we address the problem of personalization and automatic generation of museum visits with mobile devices guidance. We propose here a ubiquitous software and hardware infrastructure that supports, in a collaborative way, the generation of museum handheld-based visits. Particularly, we define the problem to be solved as an instance of the Orienteering Problem. We present an implementation of a distributed algorithm in which every computing element of the ubiquitous infrastructure contributes to the generation of sub-optimal solutions that meet the user requirements. Finally, we discuss some experimental results that validate the proposed ideas and the results obtained by a questionnaire answered by real visitors. This questionnaire was filled in during the largest deployment of this technology in Spain in which 100 Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) were made available to visitors as part of the exhibition ¿Sorolla: Vision of Spain¿.We thank the Microsoft Research Labs (Cambridge) for supporting this work under grant "Microsoft Research Excellence Awards for Embedded Systems" and partially by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology under project CENIT-MIOI CENIT-2008 1019.Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Mocholi Agües, JA.; Catalá Bolós, A.; Navarro, E. (2011). Digital ants as the best cicerones for museum visitors. Applied Soft Computing. 11(1):111-119. doi:10.1016/j.asoc.2009.11.002S11111911

TSACO: Extending a context-aware recommendation system with Allen temporal operators

In this paper we present our research to extend a recommender system based on a semantic multicriteria ant colony algorithm to allow the use of Allen temporal operators. The system utilizes user’s learnt routes, including their associated context information, in order to predict the most likely route a user is following, given his current location and context data. The addition of temporal operators will increase the level of expressiveness of the queries the system can answer what will allow, in turn, more fine-tuned predictions. This more refined knowledge could then be used as the basis for offering services related to his current (or most likely future) context in the vicinity of the path the user is followingThis work has been supported by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) under the funding project CENIT-MIO! CENIT-2008 1019.Mocholí Agües, JA.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Krynicki, KK.; Catalá Bolós, A. (2012). TSACO: Extending a context-aware recommendation system with Allen temporal operators. En Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence. Springer. 253-260. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35377-2_35S253260Adomavicius, G., Tuzhilin, A.: Toward the next generation of recommender systems: A survey of the state-of-the-art and possible extensions. IEEE Trans. Knowledge Data Eng. 17(6), 734–749 (2005)Picón, A., Rodríguez-Vaamonde, S., Jaén, J., Mocholi, J.A., García, D., Cadenas, A.: A statistical recommendation model of mobile services based on contextual evidences. Expert Systems with Applications 39(1), 647–653 (2012)Mocholi, J.A., Jaen, J., Krynicki, K., Catala, A., Picón, A., Cadenas, A.: Learning semantically-annotated routes for context-aware recommendations on map navigation systems. Applied Soft Computing 12(9), 3088–3098 (2012)Linn, Z.Z., Hla, K.H.S.: Temporal Database Queries for Recommender System using Temporal Logic. In: Intl. Symposium on Micro-NanoMechatronics and Human Science, pp. 1–6 (2006)Ullah, F., Sarwar, G., Lee, S.C., Park, Y.K., Moon, K.D., Kim, J.T.: Hybrid recommender system with temporal information. In: Intl. Conf. on Information Networking, pp. 421–425 (2012)Shakshuki, E., Trudel, A., Xu, Y., Li, B.: A Probabilistic Temporal Interval Algebra Based Multi-agent Scheduling System. In: International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence Workshop in Multi-Agent Information Retrieval and Recommender Systems, pp. 62–69 (2005)Allen, J.F.: Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals. Commun. ACM 26(11), 832–843 (1983)Dorigo, M., Maniezzo, V., Colorni, A.: The Ant System: Optimization by a Colony of Cooperating Agents. IEEE Trans. Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part B 26, 29–34 (1996)Dorigo, M., Stützle, T.: The ant colony optimization metaheuristic: Algorithms, applications and advances. In: Glover, F., Kochen-berger, G. (eds.) Handbook of Metaheuristics, pp. 251–285. Kluwer Academic Publishers (2003)Khan, L., McLeod, D.: Audio structuring and personalized retrieval using ontologies. IEEE Advances in Digital Libraries (2000)Liang, Y.C., Smith, A.E.: An Ant Colony Approach to the Orienteering Problem. Journal of the Chinese Institute of Industrial Engineers 23(5), 403–414 (2003