Mobile Agents for Mobile Tourists: A User Evaluation of Gulliver's Genie

How mobile computing applications and services may be best designed, implemented and deployed remains the subject of much research. One alternative approach to developing software for mobile users that is receiving increasing attention from the research community is that of one based on intelligent agents. Recent advances in mobile computing technology have made such an approach feasible. We present an overview of the design and implementation of an archetypical mobile computing application, namely that of an electronic tourist guide. This guide is unique in that it comprises a suite of intelligent agents that conform to the strong intentional stance. However, the focus of this paper is primarily concerned with the results of detailed user evaluations conducted on this system. Within the literature, comprehensive evaluations of mobile context-sensitive systems are sparse and therefore, this paper seeks, in part, to address this deficiency

Agent mediation and management of virtual communities: a redefinition of the traditional community concept

The paper explores the evolution of the concept of community in the light of computer mediated immersive virtual environments. The traditional concept of community has become strained in its attempts to capture the evolving virtual community. We believe the concept of the virtual community is of paramount importance and examine the extent to which this is being redefined to cater for it. We examine the management and mediation of such an environment and specifically the social process associated with the cohabited users. We advocate the use of multi-agent systems in delivering this functionalit

A Performance Analysis of Movement Patterns

This study investigates the differences in movement patterns followed by users navigating within a virtual environment. The analysis has been carried out between two groups of users, identified on the basis of their performance on a search task. Results indicate significant differences between efficient and inefficient navigators’ trajectories. They are related to rotational, translational and localised-landmarks behaviour. These findings are discussed in the light of theoretical outcomes provided by environmental psychology

Modeling user navigation

This paper proposes the use of neural networks as a tool for studying navigation within virtual worlds. Results indicate that the network learned to predict the next step for a given trajectory. The analysis of hidden layer shows that the network was able to differentiate between two groups of users identified on the basis of their performance for a spatial task. Time series analysis of hidden node activation values and input vectors suggested that certain hidden units become specialised for place and heading, respectively. The benefits of this approach and the possibility of extending the methodology to the study of navigation in Human Computer Interaction applications are discussed

Impact of Cognitive Style upon Sense of Presence

The role played by cognitive style upon sense of presence has been addressed in the presence literature. However, no experimental study was carried out in order to investigate this hypothesized relationship. This paper highlights the relationship between each of four bi-polar dimensions of cognitive style, such as extraversion–introversion, sensing–intuition, thinking– feeling and judging –perceiving, and the experienced level of sense of presence. Implications of these individual differences for understanding sense of presence and for designing virtual environments to address these differences are discussed

Presence and Individual Differences in Virtual Environment: Usability Study.

The present study assesses the usability of a desktop virtual reality system in the light of individual differences and sense of presence. The issues we focus on are the performances achieved for spatial tasks and the induced level of satisfaction. The results indicate the impact of each considered variable upon time demanded to accomplish task but not upon its accuracy. Findings also indicate genderbased and presence-based differences upon user’s satisfaction with the system

Virtual Reality in Surgery: Between Satisfaction and Stress

The present study is focused on usability issues related to laparoscopy, emphasizing the surgeon’s overall satisfaction with the mediated perception of reality. We were particularly interested in assessing the differences between this mini-invasive surgical technique and classical surgery, trying to underline both its advantages and limits. We also tried to evaluate the level of stress induced by this method, among the surgeons who use it on a regular basis, together with the adopted coping strategies. Laparoscopy, even though grounded in classical surgery, has its own distinctive features, which require flexibility in order to facilitate the transfer of skills. Despite its limited range of applicability, used discriminatively and carefully, together with well-organized training sessions, this technique can bring satisfaction to both surgeon and patient

A Connectionist Model of Spatial Knowledge Acquisition in a Virtual Environment

This paper proposes the use of neural networks as a tool for studying navigation within virtual worlds. Results indicate that network learned to predict the next step for a given trajectory, acquiring also basic spatial knowledge in terms of landmarks and configuration of spatial layout. In addition, the network built a spatial representation of the virtual world, e.g. cognitive-like map, which preserves the topology but lacks metric accuracy. The benefits of this approach and the possibility of extending the methodology to the study of navigation in Human Computer Interaction are discussed

From physical models to well-founded control

Mobile sensors are an attractive proposition for environmental sensing, but pose significant engineering problems. Not least amongst these is the need to match the behaviour of the sensor platform to the physical environment in which it operates. We present initial work on using models of physical processes to generate models for autonomic control, and speculate that these can be used to improve the confidence we can place in sensed data