RoboRun: A gamification approach to control flow learning for young students with TouchDevelop

This demo paper introduces young students to writing code in a touch enabled interactive maze game. Problem-based learning is given a gamified approach to learning, while simultaneously introducing the TouchDevelop platform to build basic first control flow algorithms and to learn about ordering and loops in conditional statements

Project PEACH at UCLH: Student Projects in Healthcare Computing

A collaboration between clinicians at UCLH and the Dept of Computer Science at UCL is giving students of computer science the opportunity to undertake real healthcare computing projects as part of their education. This is enabling the creation of a significant research computing platform within the Trust, based on open source components and hosted in the cloud, while providing a large group of students with experience of the specific challenges of health IT

Development of a Virtual Laparoscopic Trainer using Accelerometer Augmented Tools to Assess Performance in Surgical training

Previous research suggests that virtual reality (VR) may supplement conventional training in laparoscopy. It may prove useful in the selection of surgical trainees in terms of their dexterity and spatial awareness skills in the near future. Current VR training solutions provide levels of realism and in some instances, haptic feedback, but they are cumbersome by being tethered and not ergonomically close to the actual surgical instruments for weight and freedom of use factors. In addition, they are expensive hence making them less accessible to departments than conventional box trainers. The box trainers in comparison, although more economical, lack tangible feedback and realism for handling delicate tissue structures. We have previously reported on the development of a modified digitally enhanced surgical instrument for laparoscopic training, named the Parkar Tool. This tool contains wireless accelerometer and gyroscopic sensors integrated into actual laparoscopic instruments. By design, it alleviates the need for both tethered and physically different shaped tools thereby enhancing the realism when performing surgical procedures. Additionally the software (Valhalla) has the ability to digitally record surgical motions, thereby enabling it to remotely capture surgical training data to analyse and objectively evaluate performance. We have adapted and further developed our initial single training tool method as used with a laparoscopic pyloromyotomy scenario, to an enhanced method using multiple Parkar wireless tools simultaneously, for use in several different case scenarios. This allows the use and measurement of right and left handed dexterity with the benefit of using several tasks of differing complexity. The development of a 3D tissue-surface deformations solution written in OpenGL gives us several different virtual surgical training scenario approximations to use with the instruments. The trainee can start with learning simple tasks e.g. incising tissue, grasping, squeezing and stretching tissue, to more complex procedures such as suturing, herniotomies, bowel anastomoses, as well as the original pyloromyotomy as used in the first model

Constructionism through mobile interactive knowledge elicitation (MIKE) in human-computer interaction

Mobile computing holds significant as-yet unknown applications of interest in the field of Cyberscience (e-Science) methods. This thesis provides a diverse exploration into the advancement of HC1 theory through the development and testing of mobile cyberscience tools. This is done by synthesising new metrics from learning epistemologies, with the benefits that can be provided by mobile computing solutions. This thesis aims to explore how mobile cyberscience can improve HCI knowledge elicitation (KE) methods. A review of the current state of the art in mobile computing and mobile HCI demonstrates that there is very little reported research in the direction of applying mobile computing to HCI theory (rather than the reverse which is demonstrated to be significantly considered in academia). This motivates a review of the current methods and cyberscience-based tools in the domain of KE in HCI, with several prototype mobile tool designs discussed. A review of candidate grounding theories in pedagogical epistemologies is then covered to build a theoretical foundation for this work. This facilitates the acquisition of a mobile-applicable investigation candidate, namely Constructionism theory, for software modelling in mobile computing methods in HCI KE. A framework for investigating constructionism is designed and presented, describing three key models that extend the domain of HCI KE theory. Through the design, implementation and testing (both expert and user testing) of several mobile computing tools for HCI KE, termed MIKE (Mobile Interactive Knowledge Elicitation) tools, these three key models of constructionism are explored through empirical research and are reported in this thesis as separate case studies. Case study 1 investigates the use of inert constructionism through the use of card sorting. Case Study 2 investigates the use of semi-dynamic constructionism through the use of affinity diagramming. Case Study 3 investigates the use of dynamic constructionism, through the use of low fidelity paper prototyping. The findings from these case studies indicate that mobile cyberscience has a significant scope for application in the practice of current-day HCI methods, and that new qualitative measures in HCI can be acquired through mobile cyberscience tools. There are three main contributions of this thesis that provide practitioners, educators and researchers in HCI with new knowledge. Firstly, the fields of mobile computing and mobile HCI are expanded with the empirically tested simulation of the techniques of card sorting, affinity diagramming and low-fidelity paper prototyping in HCI theory through mobile software. Secondly, a developed framework of constructionism theory successfully enhances the field of HCI KE, contributing to the growth of grounding theories in the field of HCI through the findings of three separately reported case studies. Lastly, cyberscience research for HCI has been given an expansion of research in the area of augmenting HCI with mobile computing. This is achieved through the user centred design, development and user testing of several mobile tools incorporating facilities unique to HCI practitioners, educators and researchers, leading to several related peer-reviewed publications

HoloLens for medical imaging using post-mortem fetal micro-CT data

AIM AND OBJECTIVES: Demonstrate applicability of HoloLens technology for viewing post-mortem fetal micro-CT imaging data. Develop a pipeline focusing on the required editing of 3D segmentations for rendering in virtual reality (VR), file format and storage needs for medical holographic applications and the necessary functionality of a holographic application interface

The British Library Big Data Experiment: Experimental Interfaces, Experimental Teaching

Many digital humanities–taught programmes aim to engage undergraduate and postgraduate humanists with computational methods and practices (Hirsch, 2012; Cohen and Scheinfeldt, 2013). It is relatively rare, however, to routinely engage computer scientists with the needs, methods, and worldview of historians, literature scholars, librarians, and related researchers (Spiro, 2012). This poster describes an ongoing collaboration between British Library Digital Research and the UCL Department of Computer Science (UCLCS), facilitated by the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities (UCLDH), that enables and engages students in computer science with humanities research issues as part of their core assessed work. We demonstrate that CS students can provide an experimental test-bed for developing, exploring, and exploiting technical infrastructure and digital content in ways that may benefit humanities researchers within a library context. Encouraging students to develop skills in a new (and often foreign) domain encourages their critical thinking and provides real-world, complex issues that stretch and develop their technical abilities as well as their understanding of user requirements. Furthermore, from the problems, issues, and potentials such collaborative working raises, we learn more about the nature of computational infrastructure we rely on for research, and perceptions of the institutions’ core business in delivering digital content. As the British Library has a vision for transforming access to and research with its digital collections, the British Library Big Data Experiment forms an important complement to the British Library’s ongoing infrastructure activities through enabling the development of experimental services that offer unconventional engagement with its digital collections (Farquhar and Baker, 2014). All taught programmes in UCLCS require students to undertake an industry exchange 4 where they work in teams as clients to an industry partner. Though UCLCS has experience with developing student projects in partnership with digital humanists (Martin et al., 2012), industry partners have tended to come from the financial or manufacturing sectors. The British Library Big Data Experiment is an umbrella for a series of activities where the British Library is the client for assessed UCLCS project work, allowing for a rolling, responsive program of experimental design, development, and testing of infrastructure and systems. At agreed milestones during the project, the British Library provides access to required data, knowledge of data structures, and project requirements. UCLCS and UCLDH jointly provide technical and academic support to the student teams. In June 2014 the first British Library Big Data Experiment team was convened with a dissertation project, submitted in fulfilment of the MSc in Software Systems Engineering (Georgiou, Stavrou) and Computer Science (Alborzpour, Wong), using a collection of circa 68,000 17th- to 19th-century digitised volumes to underpin the design of a research-oriented web-based service. Microsoft Azure 5 APIs were implemented that functionally scale to the data, whilst the students worked in close consultation with humanities researchers who may wish to use the capabilities of such a system. The final public output (http://blpublicdomain.azurewebsites.net/) represents an attempt to capture the complex and multifaceted needs of humanities researchers whilst offering unconventional services such as bulk download of text based on metadata queries, word frequency lists, and OCR text previews. Following this successful pilot, the British Library Big Data Experiment is undertaking further collaborative work, including machine learning and mobile app development strands in autumn/winter 2014 and a second MSc dissertation project in summer 2015. Both UCLCS and its students have an appetite for embedding problems faced by memory institutions within CS learning outcomes. In partaking in such truly interdisciplinary project work, students develop new skill sets, question their assumptions about the role of library and humanities scholars, and provide useful experimental design within the institutional context. In addition, having CS students engage with humanities scholars as a routine part of their degree allows humanists to understand their research needs and institutional structures, from a different perspective. We present the British Library Big Data Experiment as a model ripe for reuse and we argue that the benefits of such collaborative programmes outweigh potential risks. The Big Data Experiment is, then, both an experiment in teaching and an experiment in involving and integrating those undertaking advanced study in computer science into memory institutions and humanities scholarship

Two tetrathiafulvalene salts of a new thiophene-functionalised ferracarborane: electrical conductivity as a function of crystal composition

Two tetrathiafulvalenium (TTF) salts of the new sandwich complex commo-3{,}3prime or minute]-Fe1-(thiophene-2-yl)-1,2-CBH], TTFFe(CBHCHS) and TTFFe(CBHCHS){,} are synthesized; while the 1 : 1 salt is an insulator{,} the 5 : 2 salt is a semiconductor featuring a conducting superlattice associated with a sublattice that shows ferromagnetic interactions between the ferracarborane complexes; single crystal X-ray studies of the 5 : 2 salt indicate that the electrical conductivity originates from a unique mixed-valence TTF network

MotionInput v2.0 supporting DirectX: A modular library of open-source gesture-based machine learning and computer vision methods for interacting and controlling existing software with a webcam

Touchless computer interaction has become an important consideration during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Despite progress in machine learning and computer vision that allows for advanced gesture recognition, an integrated collection of such open-source methods and a user-customisable approach to utilising them in a low-cost solution for touchless interaction in existing software is still missing. In this paper, we introduce the MotionInput v2.0 application. This application utilises published open-source libraries and additional gesture definitions developed to take the video stream from a standard RGB webcam as input. It then maps human motion gestures to input operations for existing applications and games. The user can choose their own preferred way of interacting from a series of motion types, including single and bi-modal hand gesturing, full-body repetitive or extremities-based exercises, head and facial movements, eye tracking, and combinations of the above. We also introduce a series of bespoke gesture recognition classifications as DirectInput triggers, including gestures for idle states, auto calibration, depth capture from a 2D RGB webcam stream and tracking of facial motions such as mouth motions, winking, and head direction with rotation. Three use case areas assisted the development of the modules: creativity software, office and clinical software, and gaming software. A collection of open-source libraries has been integrated and provide a layer of modular gesture mapping on top of existing mouse and keyboard controls in Windows via DirectX. With ease of access to webcams integrated into most laptops and desktop computers, touchless computing becomes more available with MotionInput v2.0, in a federated and locally processed method