Modeling and Analysis of Uncertain Time-Critical Tasking Problems (UTCTP)

Modeling and Analysis of Uncertain Time-Critical Tasking Problems (UTCTP

Understanding concurrent earcons: applying auditory scene analysis principles to concurrent earcon recognition

Two investigations into the identification of concurrently presented, structured sounds, called earcons were carried out. One of the experiments investigated how varying the number of concurrently presented earcons affected their identification. It was found that varying the number had a significant effect on the proportion of earcons identified. Reducing the number of concurrently presented earcons lead to a general increase in the proportion of presented earcons successfully identified. The second experiment investigated how modifying the earcons and their presentation, using techniques influenced by auditory scene analysis, affected earcon identification. It was found that both modifying the earcons such that each was presented with a unique timbre, and altering their presentation such that there was a 300 ms onset-to-onset time delay between each earcon were found to significantly increase identification. Guidelines were drawn from this work to assist future interface designers when incorporating concurrently presented earcons

Modeling and analysis of uncertain time-critical tasking problems

Naval Research Logistics, 53 , No. 6, (Sept. 2006), 588-599.This paper describes modeling and operational analysis of a generic asymmetric services-system situation in which (a) Red agents, potentially threatening, but in another but important interpretation, are isolated friendlies, such as downed pilots, that require assistance and "arrive" according to some partially known and potentially changing pattern in time and space: and (b) Reds have effectively limited unknown deadlines or times of availability for Blue service, i.e., detection, classification, and attack in a military setting or emergency assistance in others. We discuss various service options by Blue service agents and devise several approximations allowing one to compute efficiently those proportions of tasks of different classes that are successfully serviced, or more generally, if different rewards are associated with different classes of tasks, the percentage of the possible reward gained. We suggest heuristic policies of a Blue server to select the next task to perform and to decide how much time to allocate to that service. We discuss this for a number of specific examples

Painting the ideal home: using art to express visions of technologically supported independent living for older people in North East England

This paper describes the investigation of the development of future technological products to support older people in everyday living through the agency of a community art group. Recent research has identified a number of challenges facing designers seeking to use traditional participatory design approaches to gather technology requirements data from older people. Here, a project is described that sought to get a group of older people to think creatively about their needs and desires for technological support through the medium of paint. The artistic expression technique described in this article allowed the identification of issues that had also been found by previous research that used a range of different techniques. This indicates that the approach shows promise, as it allows information to be gathered in an environment that is comfortable and familiar using methods already known by the participants and which they find enjoyable. It provides a complement (or possible alternative) to standard protocols and has the potential benefit of extracting even richer information as the primary task for participants is enjoyable in its own right and is not associated with an interrogative process. Furthermore, it is argued that some of the key risks of traditional approaches are lessened or removed by the naturalistic setting of this approach

Abstract sounds and their applications in audio and perception research

International audienceRecognition of sound sources and events is an important pro- cess in sound perception and has been studied in many research domains. Conversely sounds that cannot be recognized are not often studied except by electroacoustic music composers. Besides, considerations on recogni- tion of sources might help to address the problem of stimulus selection and categorization of sounds in the context of perception research. This paper introduces what we call abstract sounds with the existing musical background and shows their relevance for different applications

Designing novel applications for emerging multimedia technology

Current R&D in media technologies such as Multimedia, Semantic Web and Sensor Web technologies are advancing in a fierce rate and will sure to become part of our important regular items in a 'conventional' technology inventory in near future. While the R&D nature of these technologies means their accuracy, reliability and robustness are not sufficient enough to be used in real world yet, we want to envision now the near-future where these technologies will have matured and used in real applications in order to explore and start shaping many possible new ways these novel technologies could be utilised. In this talk, some of this effort in designing novel applications that incorporate various media technologies as their backend will be presented. Examples include novel scenarios of LifeLogging application that incorporate automatic structuring of millions of photos passively captured from a SenseCam (wearable digital camera that automatically takes photos triggered by environmental sensors) and an interactive TV application incorporating a number of multimedia tools yet extremely simple and easy to use with a remote control in a lean-back position. The talk will conclude with remarks on how the design of novel applications that have no precedence or existing user base should require somewhat different approach from those suggested and practiced in conventional usability engineering methodology

Avalanches in the lung: A statistical mechanical model

We study a statistical mechanical model for the dynamics of lung inflation which incorporates recent experimental observations on the opening of individual airways by a cascade or avalanche mechanism. Using an exact mapping of the avalanche problem onto percolation on a Cayley tree, we analytically derive the exponents describing the size distribution of the first avalanches and test the analytical solution by numerical simulations. We find that the tree-like structure of the airways together with the simplest assumptions concerning opening threshold pressures of each airway, is sufficient to explain the existence of power-law distributions observed experimentally.Comment: 4 pages, Figures avaliable by mail from [email protected], REVTE

What determines auditory similarity? The effect of stimulus group and methodology.

Two experiments on the internal representation of auditory stimuli compared the pairwise and grouping methodologies as means of deriving similarity judgements. A total of 45 undergraduate students participated in each experiment, judging the similarity of short auditory stimuli, using one of the methodologies. The experiments support and extend Bonebright's (1996) findings, using a further 60 stimuli. Results from both methodologies highlight the importance of category information and acoustic features, such as root mean square (RMS) power and pitch, in similarity judgements. Results showed that the grouping task is a viable alternative to the pairwise task with N > 20 sounds whilst highlighting subtle differences, such as cluster tightness, between the different task results. The grouping task is more likely to yield category information as underlying similarity judgements

A survey of assistive technologies and applications for blind users on mobile platforms: a review and foundation for research

This paper summarizes recent developments in audio and tactile feedback based assistive technologies targeting the blind community. Current technology allows applications to be efficiently distributed and run on mobile and handheld devices, even in cases where computational requirements are significant. As a result, electronic travel aids, navigational assistance modules, text-to-speech applications, as well as virtual audio displays which combine audio with haptic channels are becoming integrated into standard mobile devices. This trend, combined with the appearance of increasingly user- friendly interfaces and modes of interaction has opened a variety of new perspectives for the rehabilitation and training of users with visual impairments. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of these developments based on recent advances in basic research and application development. Using this overview as a foundation, an agenda is outlined for future research in mobile interaction design with respect to users with special needs, as well as ultimately in relation to sensor-bridging applications in genera

Reenacting sensorimotor features of drawing movements from friction sounds

International audienceEven though we generally don't pay attention to the friction sounds produced when we are writing or drawing, these sounds are recordable, and can even evoke the underlying gesture. In this paper, auditory perception of such sounds, and the internal representations they evoke when we listen to them, is considered from the sensorimotor learning point of view. The use of synthesis processes of friction sounds makes it possible to investigate the perceptual influence of each gestures parameter separately. Here, the influence of the velocity profile on the mental representation of the gesture induced by a friction sound was investigated through 3 experiments. The results reveal the perceptual relevance of this parameter, and particularly a specific morphology corresponding to biological movements, the so-called 1/3-power law. The experiments are discussed according to the sensorimotor theory and the invariant taxonomy of the ecological approach