Telethrone : a situated display using retro-reflection basedmulti-view toward remote collaboration in small dynamic groups

This research identifies a gap in the tele-communication technology. Several novel technology demonstrators are tested experimentally throughout the research. The presented final system allows a remote participant in a conversation to unambiguously address individual members of a group of 5 people using non-verbal cues. The capability to link less formal groups through technology is the primary contribution. Technology-mediated communication is first reviewed, with attention to different supported styles of meetings. A gap is identified for small informal groups. Small dynamic groups which are convened on demand for the solution of specific problems may be called “ad-hoc”. In these meetings it is possible to ‘pull up a chair’. This is poorly supported by current tele-communication tools, that is, it is difficult for one or more members to join such a meeting from a remote location. It is also difficult for physically located parties to reorient themselves in the meeting as goals evolve. As the major contribution toward addressing this the ’Telethrone’ is introduced. Telethrone projects a remote user onto a chair, bringing them into your space. The chair seems to act as a situated display, which can support multi party head gaze, eye gaze, and body torque. Each observer knows where the projected user is looking. It is simpler to implement and cheaper than current comparable systems. The underpinning approach is technology and systems development, with regard to HCI and psychology throughout. Prototypes, refinements, and novel engineered systems are presented. Two experiments to test these systems are peer-reviewed, and further design & experimentation undertaken based on the positive results. The final paper is pending. An initial version of the new technology approach combined retro-reflective material with aligned pairs of cameras, and projectors, connected by IP video. A counterbalanced repeated measures experiment to analyse gaze interactions was undertaken. Results suggest that the remote user is not excluded from triadic poker game-play. Analysis of the multi-view aspect of the system was inconclusive as to whether it shows advantage over a set-up which does not support multi-view. User impressions from the questionnaires suggest that the current implementation still gives the impression of being a display despite its situated nature, although participants did feel the remote user was in the space with them. A refinement of the system using models generated by visual hull reconstruction can better connect eye gaze. An exploration is made of its ability to allow chairs to be moved around the meeting, and what this might enable for the participants of the meeting. The ability to move furniture was earlier identified as an aid to natural interaction, but may also affect highly correlated subgroups in an ad-hoc meeting. This is unsupported by current technologies. Repositioning of several onlooking chairs seems to support ’fault lines’. Performance constraints of the current system are explored. An experiment tests whether it is possible to judge remote participant eye gaze as the viewer changes location, attempting to address concerns raised by the first experiment in which the physical offsets of the IP cameras lenses from the projected eyes of the remote participants (in both directions), may have influenced perception of attention. A third experiment shows that five participants viewing a remote recording, presented through the Telethrone, can judge the attention of the remote participant accurately when the viewpoint is correctly rendered for their location in the room. This is compared to a control in which spatial discrimination is impossible. A figure for how many optically seperate retro-reflected segments is obtained through spatial anlysis and testing. It is possible to render the optical maximum of 5 independent viewpoints supporting an ’ideal’ meeting of 6 people. The tested system uses one computer at the meeting side of the exchange making it potentially deployable from a small flight case. The thesis presents and tests the utility of elements toward a system, and finds that remote users are in the conversation, spatially segmented with a view for each onlooker, that eye gaze can be reconnected through the system using 3D video, and that performance supports scalability up to the theoretical maximum for the material and an ideal meeting size

A hybrid intelligent agent for notification of users distracted by mobile phones in an urban environment

Mobile devices are now ubiquitous in daily life and the number of activities that can be performed using them is continually growing. This implies increased attention being placed on the device and diverted away from events taking place in the surrounding environment. The impact of using a smartphone on pedestrians in the vicinity of urban traffic has been investigated in a multimodal, fully immersive, virtual reality environment. Based on experimental data collected, an agent to improve the attention of users in such situations has been developed. The proposed agent uses explicit, contextual data from experimental conditions to feed a statistical learning model. The agent’s decision process is aimed at notifying users when they become unaware of critical events in their surroundings

Evidence of improving antiretroviral therapy treatment delays: an analysis of eight years of programmatic outcomes in Blantyre, Malawi

Background: Impressive achievements have been made towards achieving universal coverage of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the effects of rapid ART scale-up on delays between HIV diagnosis and treatment initiation have not been well described. Methods: A retrospective cohort study covering eight years of ART initiators (2004–2011) was conducted at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) in Blantyre, Malawi. The time between most recent positive HIV test and ART initiation was calculated and temporal trends in delay to initiation were described. Factors associated with time to initiation were investigated using multivariate regression analysis. Results: From 2004–2011, there were 15,949 ART initiations at QECH (56% female; 8% children [0–10 years] and 5%adolescents [10–20 years]). Male initiators were likely to have more advanced HIV infection at initiation than female initiators (70% vs. 64% in WHO stage 3 or 4). Over the eight years studied, there were declines in treatment delay, with 2011 having the shortest delay at 36.5 days. On multivariate analysis CD4 count <50 cells/μl (adjusted geometric mean ratio [aGMR]: aGMR: 0.53, bias-corrected accelerated [BCA] 95% CI: 0.42-0.68) was associated with shorter ART treatment delay. Women (aGMR: 1.12, BCA 95% CI: 1.03-1.22) and patients diagnosed with HIV at another facility outside QECH (aGMR: 1.61, BCA 95% CI: 1.47-1.77) had significantly longer treatment delay. Conclusions: Continued improvements in treatment delays provide evidence that universal access to ART can be achieved using the public health approach adopted by Malawi However, the longer delays for women and patients diagnosed at outlying sites emphasises the need for targeted interventions to support equitable access for these groups

The use of immersive and virtual reality technologies to enable nursing students to experience scenario based, basic life support training- exploring the impact on confidence and skills

The link between effective basic life support (BLS) and survival following cardiac arrest is well known. Nurses are often first responders at in- hospital cardiac arrests and receive annual BLS training to ensure they have the adequate skills, and student nurses are taught this in preparation for their clinical practice. However, it is clear that some nurses still lack confidence and skills to perform BLS in an emergency situation. This innovative study included 209 participants, used a mixed methods approach and examined three environments to compare confidence and skills in BLS training. The environments were non- immersive (basic skills room), immersive, (the immersive room with video technology), and the Octave (mixed reality facility). The skills were measured using a Laerdal training manikin (QCPR manikin), with data recorded on a wireless Laerdal Simpad, and the pre and post confidence levels were measured using a questionnaire. The non-immersive and the immersive room rooms were familiar environments and the students felt more comfortable and relaxed and thus more confident. The Octave offered the higher level of simulation utilizing Virtual Reality (VR) technology. Students felt less comfortable and less confident in the Octave; we assert that this was because the environment was unfamiliar. The study identified that placing students in an unfamiliar environment influences the confidence and skills associated with BLS; this could be used as a way of preparing students / nurses with the necessary emotional resilience to cope in stressful situations

With you – an experimental end-to-end telepresence system using video-based reconstruction

We introduce withyou, our telepresence research platform. A systematic explanation of the theory brings together the linked nature of non-verbal communication and how it is influenced by technology. This leads to functional requirements for telepresence, in terms of the balance of visual, spatial and temporal qualities. The first end-to-end description of withyou describes all major processes and the display and capture environment. This includes two approaches to reconstructing the human form in 3D, from live video. An unprecedented characterization of our approach is given in terms of the above qualities, and influences of approach. This leads to non-functional requirements in terms of number and place of cameras and the avoidance of a resultant bottlekneck. Proposals are given for improved distribution of processes across networks, computers, and multi-core CPU and GPU. Simple conservative estimation shows that both approaches should meet our requirements. One is implemented and shown to meet minimum and come close to desirable requirements

A new efficient trial design for assessing reliability of ankle-brachial index measures by three different observer groups

BACKGROUND: The usual method of assessing the variability of a measure such as the ankle brachial index (ABI) as a function of different observer groups is to obtain repeated measurements. Because the number of possible observer-subject combinations is impractically large, only a few small studies on inter- and intraobserver variability of ABI measures have been carried out to date. The present study proposes a new and efficient study design. This paper describes the study methodology. METHODS: Using a partially balanced incomplete block design, six angiologists, six primary-care physicians and six trained medical office assistants performed two ABI measurements each on six individuals from a group of 36 unselected subjects aged 65–70 years. Each test subject is measured by one observer from each of the three observer groups, and each observer measures exactly six of the 36 subjects in the group. Each possible combination of two observers occurs exactly once per patient and is not repeated on a second subject. The study involved four groups of 36 subjects (144), plus standbys. RESULTS: The 192 volunteers present at the study day were similar in terms of demographic characteristics and vascular risk factors: mean age 68.6 ± 1.7; mean BMI 29.1 ± 4.6; mean waist-hip ratio 0.92 ± 0.09; active smokers 12%; hypertension 60.9%; hypercholesterolemia 53.4%; diabetic 17.2%. A complete set of ABI measurements (three observers performing two Doppler measurements each) was obtained from 108 subjects. From all other subjects at least one ABI measurement was obtained. The mean ABI was 1.08 (± 0.13), 15 (7.9%) volunteers had an ABI <0.9, and none had an ABI >1.4, i.e. a ratio that may be associated with increased stiffening of the arterial walls. CONCLUSION: This is the first large-scale study investigating the components of variability and thus reliability in ABI measurements. The advantage of the new study design introduced here is that only one sixth of the number of theoretically possible measurements is required to obtain information about measurement errors. Bland-Altman plots show that there are only small differences and no systematic bias between the observers from three occupational groups with different training backgrounds