Touching the invisible: Localizing ultrasonic haptic cues

While mid-air gestures offer new possibilities to interact with or around devices, some situations, such as interacting with applications, playing games or navigating, may require visual attention to be focused on a main task. Ultrasonic haptic feedback can provide 3D spatial haptic cues that do not demand visual attention for these contexts. In this paper, we present an initial study of active exploration of ultrasonic haptic virtual points that investigates the spatial localization with and without the use of the visual modality. Our results show that, when providing haptic feedback giving the location of a widget, users perform 50% more accurately compared to providing visual feedback alone. When provided with a haptic location of a widget alone, users are more than 30% more accurate than when given a visual location. When aware of the location of the haptic feedback, active exploration decreased the minimum recommended widget size from 2cm2 to 1cm2 when compared to passive exploration from previous studies. Our results will allow designers to create better mid-air interactions using this new form of haptic feedback

Conception et évaluation de nouvelles techniques d'interaction dans le contexte de la télévision interactive

Television has never stopped being popularized and offering new services to the viewers. These interactive services make viewers more engaged in television activities. Unlike the use of a computer, they interact on a remote screen with a remote control from their sofa which is not convenient for using a keyboard and a mouse. The remote control and the current interaction techniques associated with it are struggling to meet viewers’ expectations. To address this problem, the work of this thesis explores the possibilities offered by the gestural modality to design new interaction techniques for interactive television, taking into account its context of use. More specifically, in a first step, we present the specific context of the television usage. Then, we propose a litterature review of research trying to improve the remote control. Finally we focus on gestural interaction. To guide the design of interaction techniques based on gestural modality, we introduce a taxonomy that attempts to unify gesture interaction constrained by a surface and hand-free gesture interaction. Therefore, we propose various techniques for gestural interaction in two scopes of research : gestural instrumented interaction techniques, which improves the traditional remote control expressiveness, and hand-free gestural interaction by exploring the possibility o performing gestures on the surface of the belly to control the television set.La télévision n’a cessé de se populariser et d’évoluer en proposant de nouveaux services. Ces services de plus en plus interactifs rendent les téléspectateurs plus engagés dans l’activité télévisuelle. Contrairement à l’usage d’un ordinateur, ils interagissent sur un écran distant avec une télécommande et des applications depuis leur canapé peu propice à l’usage d’un clavier et d’une souris. Ce dispositif et les techniques d’interaction actuelles qui lui sont associées peinent à répondre correctement à leurs attentes. Afin de répondre à cette problématique, les travaux de cette thèse explorent les possibilités offertes par la modalité gestuelle pour concevoir de nouvelles techniques d’interaction pour la télévision interactive en tenant compte de son contexte d’usage. Dans un premier temps, nous présentons le contexte singulier de l’activité télévisuelle. Puis, nous proposons un espace de caractérisation des travaux de la littérature cherchant à améliorer la télécommande pour, finalement, nous focaliser sur l’interaction gestuelle. Nous introduisons un espace de caractérisation qui tente d’unifier l’interaction gestuelle contrainte par une surface, mains libres, et instrumentée ou non afin de guider la conception de nouvelles techniques. Nous avons conçu et évalué diverses techniques d’interaction gestuelle selon deux axes de recherche : les techniques d’interaction gestuelle instrumentées permettant d’améliorer l’expressivité interactionnelle de la télécommande traditionnelle, et les techniques d’interaction gestuelles mains libres en explorant la possibilité de réaliser des gestes sur la surface du ventre pour contrôler sa télévision

HaptiGlow: Helping Users Position their Hands for Better Mid-Air Gestures and Ultrasound Haptic Feedback

We present HaptiGlow, a technique that combines ultrasound haptics with peripheral visual feedback to help users find where to place their hand for improved mid-air interaction. Hand position is important. If a user's hand is poorly placed, input sensors may have difficulty recognising their gestures. Mid-air haptic feedback is also hard to perceive when the hand is in a poor position. Our novel feedback addresses this important usability problem. Our results show the combination of ultrasound haptics and peripheral visuals is effective, with the strengths of each leading to accurate (23mm) and fast (4.6s) guidance in a 3D targeting task. Our technique improves midair interaction by easily helping users find a good hand position

SAM: The School Attachment Monitor

Secure Attachment relationships have been shown to minimise social and behavioural problems in children and boosts resilience to risks later on such as antisocial behaviour, heart pathologies, and suicide. Attachment assessment is an expensive and time-consuming process that is not often performed. The School Attachment Monitor (SAM) automates Attachment assessment to support expert assessors. It uses doll-play activities with the dolls augmented with sensors and the child's play recorded with cameras to provide data for assessment. Social signal processing tools are then used to analyse the data and to automatically categorize Attachment patterns. This paper presents the current SAM interactive prototype

Exploration et gestion des connaissances des ressources en IHM

National audienceNous présentons dans l' article le résultat d'un travail réalisé à l'école de Printemps 2010 de l'AFIHM. L'analyse des activités liées à la réalisation d' un état de l'art nous montre qu'une des tâches les plus compliquées est la familiarisation avec un nouveau domaine. Pour outiller cette activité, nous présentons des pistes de réflexion basées sur une analogie avec la mémoire humaine

The School Attachment Monitor—A novel computational tool for assessment of attachment in middle childhood

© 2021 Rooksby et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.Background Attachment research has been limited by the lack of quick and easy measures. We report development and validation of the School Attachment Monitor (SAM), a novel measure for largescale assessment of attachment in children aged 5–9, in the general population. SAM offers automatic presentation, on computer, of story-stems based on the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST), without the need for trained administrators. SAM is delivered by novel software which interacts with child participants, starting with warm-up activities to familiarise them with the task. Children’s story completion is video recorded and augmented by ‘smart dolls’ that the child can hold and manipulate, with movement sensors for data collection. The design of SAM was informed by children of users’ age range to establish their task understanding and incorporate their innovative ideas for improving SAM software. Methods 130 5–9 year old children were recruited from mainstream primary schools. In Phase 1, sixty-one children completed both SAM and MCAST. Inter-rater reliability and rating concordance was compared between SAM and MCAST. In Phase 2, a further 44 children completed SAM complete and, including those children completing SAM in Phase 1 (total n = 105), a machine learning algorithm was developed using a “majority vote” procedure where, for each child, 500 non-overlapping video frames contribute to the decision. Results Using manual rating, SAM-MCAST concordance was excellent (89% secure versus insecure; 97% organised versus disorganised; 86% four-way). Comparison of human ratings of SAM versus the machine learning algorithm showed over 80% concordance. Conclusions We have developed a new tool for measuring attachment at the population level, which has good reliability compared to a validated attachment measure and has the potential for automatic rating–opening the door to measurement of attachment in large populations.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Automating the Administration and Analysis of Psychiatric Tests: the Case of Attachment in School Age Children

This article presents the School Attachment Monitor, a novel interactive system that can reliably administer the Manch- ester Child Attachment Story Task (a standard psychiatric test for the assessment of attachment in children) without the supervision of trained professionals. Attachment prob- lems in children cause significant mental health issues and costs to society which technology has the potential to re- duce. SAM collects, through instrumented doll-play games, enough information to allow a human assessor to manually identify the attachment status of children. Experiments show that the system successfully does this in 87.5% of cases. In addition, the experiments show that an automatic approach based on deep neural networks can map the information collected into the attachment condition of the children. The outcome SAM matches the judgment of expert human asses- sors in 82.8% of cases. This is the first time an automated tool has been successful in measuring attachment. This work has significant implications for psychiatry as it allows profes- sionals to assess many more children cost effectively and to direct healthcare resources more accurately and efficiently to improve mental health

Enantioselective Annulation Reactions of Bisenolates Prepared Through Dearomatization Reactions of Aromatic and Heteroaromatic Diesters

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Pérez-Vázquez, J., Veiga, A., Prado, G., Sardina, F., & Paleo, M. (2012). Enantioselective Annulation Reactions of Bisenolates Prepared Through Dearomatization Reactions of Aromatic and Heteroaromatic Diesters. European Journal Of Organic Chemistry, 2012(5), 975-987, which has been published in final form at https:// doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.201101427. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived VersionsA one‐pot, enantioselective strategy for the dearomatization–annulation of aromatic diesters to give a range of highly functionalized polycyclic molecules with excellent enantioselectivity is presented. This methodology is based on the reaction of bisenolates, prepared by treating aromatic diesters with trialkyltin lithium reagents, which involves a stanna‐Brook rearrangement, with 1,ω‐dihaloalkanes and other biselectrophiles. We have also developed experimental conditions for performing these reactions with substoichiometric amounts of the required tin reagent by in situ recycling of Me6Sn2 into Me3SnLi with excess lithium metal, and provide a study of the scope and limitations of this synthetic methodologyFinancial support from Spanish MCYT (fellowship to A. V.) and Xunta de Galicia (Grants 10PXIB209113PR and 10PXIB209155PR) is gratefully acknowledgedS

Harmonization and standardization of nucleus pulposus cell extraction and culture methods

Background: In vitro studies using nucleus pulposus (NP) cells are commonly used to investigate disc cell biology and pathogenesis, or to aid in the development of new therapies. However, lab‐to‐lab variability jeopardizes the much‐needed progress in the field. Here, an international group of spine scientists collaborated to standardize extraction and expansion techniques for NP cells to reduce variability, improve comparability between labs and improve utilization of funding and resources. Methods: The most commonly applied methods for NP cell extraction, expansion, and re‐differentiation were identified using a questionnaire to research groups worldwide. NP cell extraction methods from rat, rabbit, pig, dog, cow, and human NP tissue were experimentally assessed. Expansion and re‐differentiation media and techniques were also investigated. Results: Recommended protocols are provided for extraction, expansion, and re‐differentiation of NP cells from common species utilized for NP cell culture. Conclusions: This international, multilab and multispecies study identified cell extraction methods for greater cell yield and fewer gene expression changes by applying species‐specific pronase usage, 60–100 U/ml collagenase for shorter durations. Recommendations for NP cell expansion, passage number, and many factors driving successful cell culture in different species are also addressed to support harmonization, rigor, and cross‐lab comparisons on NP cells worldwide

Measuring routine childhood vaccination coverage in 204 countries and territories, 1980-2019 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020, Release 1

Background Measuring routine childhood vaccination is crucial to inform global vaccine policies and programme implementation, and to track progress towards targets set by the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) and Immunization Agenda 2030. Robust estimates of routine vaccine coverage are needed to identify past successes and persistent vulnerabilities. Drawing from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2020, Release 1, we did a systematic analysis of global, regional, and national vaccine coverage trends using a statistical framework, by vaccine and over time. Methods For this analysis we collated 55 326 country-specific, cohort-specific, year-specific, vaccine-specific, and dosespecific observations of routine childhood vaccination coverage between 1980 and 2019. Using spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression, we produced location-specific and year-specific estimates of 11 routine childhood vaccine coverage indicators for 204 countries and territories from 1980 to 2019, adjusting for biases in countryreported data and reflecting reported stockouts and supply disruptions. We analysed global and regional trends in coverage and numbers of zero-dose children (defined as those who never received a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis [DTP] vaccine dose), progress towards GVAP targets, and the relationship between vaccine coverage and sociodemographic development. Findings By 2019, global coverage of third-dose DTP (DTP3; 81.6% [95% uncertainty interval 80.4-82 .7]) more than doubled from levels estimated in 1980 (39.9% [37.5-42.1]), as did global coverage of the first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1; from 38.5% [35.4-41.3] in 1980 to 83.6% [82.3-84.8] in 2019). Third- dose polio vaccine (Pol3) coverage also increased, from 42.6% (41.4-44.1) in 1980 to 79.8% (78.4-81.1) in 2019, and global coverage of newer vaccines increased rapidly between 2000 and 2019. The global number of zero-dose children fell by nearly 75% between 1980 and 2019, from 56.8 million (52.6-60. 9) to 14.5 million (13.4-15.9). However, over the past decade, global vaccine coverage broadly plateaued; 94 countries and territories recorded decreasing DTP3 coverage since 2010. Only 11 countries and territories were estimated to have reached the national GVAP target of at least 90% coverage for all assessed vaccines in 2019. Interpretation After achieving large gains in childhood vaccine coverage worldwide, in much of the world this progress was stalled or reversed from 2010 to 2019. These findings underscore the importance of revisiting routine immunisation strategies and programmatic approaches, recentring service delivery around equity and underserved populations. Strengthening vaccine data and monitoring systems is crucial to these pursuits, now and through to 2030, to ensure that all children have access to, and can benefit from, lifesaving vaccines. Copyright (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe