Search

Some of the most interesting developments within computer system design in recent years have emerged from an exploration of the ways everyday objects and artefacts can be augmented with computational resources. Often under the rubric of "ubiquitous computing", research programmes in Europe, North America and Japan have directed substantial funding towards these initiatives, and leading industrial and academic research laboratories have developed a diverse range of ubiquitous computing "solutions". These developments mark an important shift in system design, a shift that is having a corresponding impact on social science research. Surprisingly though, given the growing commitment to the ubiquitous and the tangible, there is a mundane, even humble artefact that pervades our ordinary lives that has received less attention than one might imagine. This artefact is paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with a multi-resolution tool for screening paper formation variations in various frequency regions on production line. A paper web is illuminated by two red diode lasers and the reflected light recorded as two time series of high resolution measurements constitute the input signal to the papermaking process monitoring system. The time series are divided into blocks and each block is analyzed separately. The task is treated as kernel based novelty detection applied to a multi-resolution time series representation obtained from the band-pass filtering of the Fourier power spectrum of the series. The frequency content of each frequency region is characterized by a feature vector, which is transformed using the canonical correlation analysis and then categorized into the inlier or outlier class by the novelty detector. The ratio of outlying data points, significantly exceeding the predetermined value, indicates abnormalities in the paper formation. The tools developed are used for online paper formation monitoring in a paper mill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers from the same lab often spend a considerable amount of time searching for published articles relevant to their current project. Despite having similar interests, they conduct independent, time consuming searches. While they may share the results afterwards, they are unable to leverage previous search results during the search process. We propose a research paper recommender system that avoids such time consuming searches by augmenting existing search engines with recommendations based on previous searches performed by others in the lab. Most existing recommender systems were developed for commercial domains with millions of users. The research paper domain has relatively few users compared to the large number of online research papers. The two major challenges with this type of data are the large number of dimensions and the sparseness of the data. The novel contribution of the paper is a scalable subspace clustering algorithm (SCuBASCuBA: Subspace Clustering Based Analysis.) that tackles these problems. Both synthetic and benchmark datasets are used to evaluate the clustering algorithm and to demonstrate that it performs better than the traditional collaborative filtering approaches when recommending research papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wet paper codes were proposed as a tool for constructing steganographic schemes with an arbitrary selection channel that is not shared between the sender and the recipient. In this paper, we describe new approaches to wet paper codes that enjoy low computational complexity and improved embedding efficiency (number of message bits per embedding change). Some applications of wet paper codes to steganography and data embedding in binary images are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple business factors have emerged to accelerate the necessity of event-driven functionality and make it part of the main-stream computing, instead of a niche technology. Consequently, there is now focus on using high-level software constructs to build these applications. This paper presents a vision for such high-level features and architecture. This paper explains why "event-driven applications" becomes an emerging area, explains the basic terminology of EDA, explains the relationship to business rules, and sets some directions for the future of this discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Office workers tend to produce paper piles of documents to read or to process sometime later. The information contained in these piles is often lost if it is not transferred to electronic format and connected to knowledge structures. Information that is not part of the knowledge worker's electronic information space is frequently overlooked because it is not proactively provided during actual processes or tasks he is involved in. This paper presents a novel prototype for an intelligent office appliance, which results from an integration of three state-of-the-art office applications/appliances: a workflow system, a document classification system, and a multi-functional peripheral. The resulting system allows for leveraging an office worker's papers to her personal knowledge space in order to realize a pro-active and context-sensitive information support within knowledge-intensive tasks and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To facilitate the transition from paper-based patient record (PPR) to computer-based patient record (CPR), engineers should try to improve the usability of CPR system. From the point of view of a physician, we reviewed PPRs written by 8 Japanese physicians. We revealed the characteristics of PPR to find out about the barrier to transition from PPR to CPR. Our findings may be helpful to the engineers who are aiming to develop a CPR system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe the design of a hybrid search that combines simple metadata search with a traditional keyword search over unstructured context data. This paradigm provides the inquirer additional options to narrow the search with some semantic aspects through the XML metadata query. We demonstrate a paper search for a case study of the hybrid search, and describe a data integration hub to integrate those data dispersed on the Net. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U-Healthcare promises increases in efficiency, accuracy and availability of medical treatment; however it also introduces the potential for serious abuses including major privacy violations, staff discrimination and even life-threatening attacks. In this position paper we highlight some potential threats and open the discussion about the security requirements of this new scenario. We take a few initial steps towards a U-Healthcare security policy and propose a system architecture designed to help enforce the policy's goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global paper industry needs systems that can be used in all locations. International user studies can be helpful when integrating systems. Not only due to the lack of common language but also the differences in culture and the usage of systems, information from different countries needs to be collected and analyzed so that the integration development is not be biased and unilateral. During the study some food for thought was gathered on what to consider when planning an international user study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed AirTransNote, a computer-mediated classroom collaboration system. The system enables real-time note-sharing. AirTransNote manages notes written by students on paper and enables the teacher to browse through the notes or show them to the students. AirTransNote can analyze students' answers, helping the teacher better understand their problems. The system is not meant to provide an alternative to the conventional way of instruction; rather, it is designed to enhance class interaction. We conducted a preliminary study using questionnaires and found that this system can be feasible to apply for classroom environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many documents exist in both paper and electronic forms. Paper has many well-known advantages, but electronic texts often contain useful information that is not easily accessible from printed paper versions. SGML texts, in particular, are rich sources of additional information. The Active Alice project shows how a reader can use a paper document to access information from its corresponding electronic version without having to manipulate the electronic version via a separate computer interface. The project makes use of a DigitalDesk. This is an ordinary desk augmented with a video camera and computer-driven projector. The camera captures images of the pages on the desk and detects simple user actions such as pointing to specific words on a page. The images are used to associate the pages with their SGML counterparts. Information from the SGML versions can then be conveyed directly to the reader via information projected onto the page or onto other areas of the desk. The project takes its name from the example text used—a version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SimStudent is a machine-learning agent that learns cognitive skills by demonstration. It was originally developed as a building block of the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT), so that the authors do not have to build a cognitive model by hand, but instead simply demonstrate solutions for SimStudent to automatically generate a cognitive model. The SimStudent technology could then be used to model human students' performance as well. To evaluate the applicability of SimStudent as a tool for modeling real students, we applied SimStudent to a genuine learning log gathered from classroom experiments with the Algebra I Cognitive Tutor. Such data can be seen as the human students' "demonstrations" of how to solve problems. The results from an empirical study show that SimStudent can indeed model human students' performance. After training on 20 problems solved by a group of human students, a cognitive model generated by SimStudent explained 82% of the problem-solving steps performed correctly by another group of human students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter analyses the concept of digital atlas, analysing different definitions found in the literature. Additionally, the characteristics and different classifications of digital atlases are analysed. The lingering question about the difference between GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and digital atlases was also addressed in the chapter. It is believed that a better understanding of what a digital atlas can be will facilitate the development of future digital atlas projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe MultiModal WebRemUsine, a tool for remote usability evaluation of Web sites that considers data regarding the user behavior coming from multiple sources. The tool performs an automatic evaluation of the usability of the considered Web site by comparing such data with that contained in the task model associated with the pages (which describes the expected behavior of the user). The results of the analysis are provided along with information regarding the user behavior during the task performance. Using such information, evaluators can identify problematic parts of the Web site and make improvements, when necessary. An example of application of the proposed method is also discussed in the paper [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a software tool for rapid prototyping of interactive systems whose user interfaces could be distributed according to four axes defined in a design space: type of computing platform, amount of interaction surfaces, type of interaction surface, and type of user interface. This software is based on a virtual toolkit for rendering the user interfaces in a virtual world depicting the real world in which the distribution occurs. The virtual toolkit consists of a layer for rendering a concrete user interface specified in a user interface description language. This paper presents its extension to modeling the external environment in terms of the design space so as to render the context of use in which the user interfaces are distributed. For each axis, a pair of functions enables exploring the axis in decreasing and increasing order so as to explore various situations of distribution, axis by axis, or in a combined way. As the interfaces resulting from this rendering are truly executable ones, this system provides designers with an acceptable means for generating ideas about how a user interface can be distributed in a context of use, and helps to evaluate the quality of a solution at an early design stage. Four representative situations located on the design space are implemented and discussed: distribution in a multi-platform context, distribution of the workplace, ubiquitous computing, and ambient intelligence, thus proving the coverage of the design space and the capabilities of the whole system [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cognition, Communication & Interaction is the property of Springer eBooks and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There is an on-going trend towards turning paper documents that store personal information or other valuable data into machine-readable form. An example of this trend is the electronic passport that will become common in the near future. In this paper we show how the security of these machine readable documents could be improved by combining RFID with optical memory devices. We propose integrating an optical memory device into the RFID enabled smart document and present methods how these two storage media can be combined to secure the document against threats like illicit scanning, eavesdropping and forgery. The presented approaches make use of the optical document-to-reader channel which is more secure than the radio-frequency communication interface. To demonstrate the potential of our approaches we show how they could overcomea number of existing security and privacy threats of electronic passports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RFID systems, and indeed other forms of wireless technologies, are now a pervasive form of computing. In the context of security and privacy, the most threatening (to privacy) and vulnerable (to insecurity) are the ‘low cost RFID systems'. The problems are further aggravated by the fact that it is this form of RFID that is set to proliferate through various consumer goods supply chains throughout the world. This is occurring through the actions of multinational companies like Wal-Mart, Tesco, Metro UPS and of powerful government organizations such as the United States DOD (Department Of Defence) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration). This paper examines the vulnerabilities of current low cost RFID systems and explores the security and privacy threats posed as a result of those vulnerabilities. The paper will also formulate a framework for defining the problem space constructed around low cost RFID systems, and consider the challenges faced in engineering solutions to overcome the defencelessness of low cost RFID systems. Security issues beyond and including interrogators will not be considered as such concerns may be easily resolved using existing technology and knowledge, and because interrogators are powerful devices where complex encryption and decryption operations may be performed using either the embedded systems, DSPs, or using hardware implementation of encryption engines on a FPGA device onboard a reader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of modern cryptography. As the title of this paper suggests this paper is a primer, and provides background information that can assist other researchers in further study, and in developing security mechanisms suitable for inclusion on RFID tags. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of generating design knowledge from product field data. The main motivation to consider this issue is the fact that in many companies there is quite a substantial history of collection and analysis of products field data which can be exploited in the generation of valuable knowledge to aid designers in improving specific aspects of their (re)design activities for products of the same family. Currently, field data is mainly used for managerial, marketing or logistical purposes. A product oriented framework with an appropriate analysis of this data and a deliberate focus on issues related to design aspects such as reliability, maintainability, environment and safety can enable the generation of useful knowledge which can aid designers in improving the considered aspects of their (re)design activities. In this paper, we present a general approach for generating design knowledge from product field data and we illustrate the main steps of this approach for the case of generating reliability knowledge from maintenance field data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emulation is a cost effective and efficient tool to perform performances evaluation and innovative access and network techniques validation. Its ability to interconnect real equipments with real applications provides excellent demonstrations means. The main problem is to overcome the emulation weakness which is the accuracy of the model reproducing the systems to be evaluated. Owing to its modular design and implementation, the PLATINE satellite emulation platform, presented in this paper, is able to emulate a complete DVB-RCS (Digital Video Broadcasting — Return Channel via Satellite)- DVB-S2 (Digital Video Broadcasting — Second) system in a realistic and flexible way. It is possible to configure the platform to emulate a transparent DVB-RCS system dimensioned around a single Hub, or to emulate a system using a regenerative satellite with an onboard switching matrix. Different DVB-RCS protocol stacks are implemented, and the adaptive physical layer is emulated in real time thanks to precalculated DRA schemes and MODCOD files. A DiffServ-like QoS Architecture that couples MAC and IP-Layer QoS mechanisms and Layer 2 security framework are currently under development. At the network side, IPv4 and IPv6 are fully supported as well as IPv6 mobility and dynamic multicast. In this paper, we mainly focus on the emulation platform and the tools developed to help the performance analysis of the emulated system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming to provide low-cost universal broadband access, this paper describes the strategy that supports the integration of hybrid satellite and WiMAX, based on the network architecture proposed in the IST Satsix project. In this context, WiMAX networks can be used as wireless local loops integrated with a satellite network, lowering the cost of the broadband internet connections and providing a universal access to rural and marine areas. The paper presents the problems concerning the interworking between DVB-RCS and WiMAX technologies and the solutions adopted in the SatSix research project, partially funded by European Commission within the Information Society Technologies (IST) 6th Framework Programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Insider Attack & Cyber Security is the property of Springer eBooks and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper describes a pilot study to investigate participants' perceptions of usefulness and usability of our developed Plant Mixed Reality System (PMRS), designed for primary school children (11-12 years old). Preliminary results seemed to indicate participants' intention to use PMRS for learning. The paper concludes with a discussion on how the findings were used to formulate a second study based on the Technology Acceptance Model, and discuss implications on intention to use and acceptance of mixed reality systems for education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactive 3D computer graphics technology is now extremely popular, seen in the increasing interest in and use of 3D digitization of cultural heritage contents. This paper introduces a digital interactive cultural heritage system which embeds Virtual-Reality (VR) technology within the Peranakan culture, the Peranakan culture being a Singaporean unique ethnic culture. A prototype has undergone the full developmental process of being implemented, tested, and evaluated. This paper will also discuss the results of the usability test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an optical see-through (OST) Augmented Reality (AR) system for the treatment of phobia to small animals. Our group has already presented two AR systems for this treatment. The first system was a video see-through (VST) AR system. The second one was a markerless AR system. And now, we present a third version using an OST approach. To check whether the OST AR system is more or less effective than the OST AR system, we have carried out an experiment comparing both systems. In this paper we focus on the anxiety level of participants during the experiment. Results show that both systems provoke anxiety in participants even if they do not have fear to cockroaches/spiders. OST AR system provokes slightly more anxiety than the VST AR system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driving simulator is an important facility for driving safety study. This paper introduced three well-know large-scale moving-base driving simulators and two fixed-base simulators. Driving simulator has a broad range of applications of driving safety study, from driver's behavior study to vehicle device and technology study, the paper reviewed seven main research aspects including behavior study, driver education and training, transportation infrastructure, medicine and therapy, ergonomics, Intelligent Transportation System, and administrative method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce an innovative application designed to make collaborative design review in the architectural and automotive domain more effective. For this purpose we present a system architecture which combines variety of visualization displays such as high resolution multi-tile displays, TabletPCs and head-mounted displays with innovative 2D and 3D Interaction Paradigms to better support collabo rative mobile mixed reality design reviews. Our research and development is motivated by two use scenarios: automotive and architectural design review involving real users from Page\Park architects and FIAT Elasis. Our activities are supported by the EU IST project IMPROVE aimed at developing advanced display techniques, fostering activities in the areas of: optical see-through HMD development using unique OLED technology, marker-less optical tracking, mixed reality rendering, image calibration for large tiled displays, collaborative tablet-based and projection wall oriented interaction and stereoscopic video streaming for mobile users. The paper gives an overview of the hardware and software developments within IMPROVE and concludes with results from first user tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple and rapid prototyping is important for collaborative design where end users are involved in the design process from the early phase. This paper presents a collaborative design prototyping tool for hardware software integrated information appliances, such as mobile phones and digital cameras. It supports the collaboration between designers and users for identification of user needs and evaluation of design. The tool consists of STCtools (State Transition Chart tools) software, hardware modeling materials, physical user interface toolkits for software hardware integration, and Augmented Reality desk (ARdesk) for interactive simulation. STCtools allow users to prototype the behavioral aspect of information appliances using states and events. Using the hardware modeling materials and the physical user interface toolkit, designers and end-users explore hardware aspects together. ARdesk is a workbench where the interactive sketch display is projected onto an invisible paper marker of the hardware model using the projection based augmented reality technique. Three collaborative design workshops of designing a portable device for theme park users were accomplished with the prototyping tool for qualitative evaluation. The results suggested that the tool supported collaborative design by iterative concept development and active interactions between designers and end users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some results of a research project aiming at developing haptic tools for virtual shape modeling resembling the real tools like rakes and sandpaper used by modelers and designers in the real workshop. The developed system consists of a CAS (Computer Aided Styling) system enhanced with intuitive designer-oriented interaction tools and modalities. The system requirements have been defined on the basis of the observation of designers during their daily work and translating the way they model shapes using hands and craft tools into specifications for the modeling system based on haptic tools. The haptic tool and the interaction modality developed for exploring and sanding a surface is presented in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sums up the previous research on Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF) individualization for three-dimensional (3D) virtual auditory display. Papers which involve experiment research, theoretical computation research, and applications of 3D virtual auditory display based on HRTFs have been reviewed. The necessity of HRTF individualization is discussed based on the review of previous experimental comparison between non-individual and individual HRTFs. At last the seven potential methods of individualization of HRTFs are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an experiment conducted to study the effects of changing scene color inside a virtual environment on the rated levels of nausea among sixty-four viewers. Current theory on visually induced motion sickness suggests that changing the color of dynamically moving visual stimuli, while keeping everything equals, will not affect the rated sickness symptoms of the viewers. Interestingly, a recent study by another authors reported that color do affect levels of visually induced motion sickness. Preliminary results of this experiment suggest that while exposure duration to the visual stimuli significantly increased the rated levels of nausea and simulator sickness questionnaire scores (p<0.001, ANOVAs), changes of color did not affect the levels of sickness. Reasons for the conflicting results are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposed a new visual tag system for enhancing real world media interaction using handheld camera devices. This paper also described performance evaluations of the prototype, and its applications. C-Band is based on a ring with a color pattern code. A C-Band tag can provide a self-contained URL, and is flexible enough to allow various aesthetic designs for the tag's surface. Furthermore, the tag's structure is useful for building interactive techniques. Taken together, these features suggest that C-Band is an effective method to build various attractive camera-based media interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights some of the current problems in CVE development. These problems are mainly due to a lack of a good interaction model guiding the behaviour of the environments. This paper introduces the definition of a model based on the idea of the interaction views. The key concepts for understanding interaction views are also given during the explanation of the model. The paper also describes a reference architecture based on this model which can be found useful for the design of modelling tools, and a prototype application that helps understanding both the architecture and the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces an audio rendering system based on the binaural approach, which allows a real-time simulation of spatially distributed sound sources and, in addition to that, near-to-head sources in room-mounted virtual environments. We have been developing a dynamic crosstalk cancellation, allowing the listener to freely move around without wearing any headphones. The paper gives a comprehensive description of the system, concentrating on the dual dynamic crosstalk cancellation and aspects of the integration of a real-time room acoustical simulation. Finally, two applications are described to show the wide applicability of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a design and implementation of a new handheld user interface framework called HIVE. HIVE provides the familiar 2D user interface on a mobile handheld computer to support user interactions in a virtual environment. It provides a scripting language based on XML and Lua to ease the development of handheld user interfaces and to increase the reusability of the interface components. This paper also discusses the use of the HIVE framework to develop a couple of handheld user interface applications for virtual environments to show usability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present an illumination model for rendering realistic stained glass which simulates the phenomenon of stained glass in real world. The optics for stained glass involves three basic physical mechanisms: diffuse light and specular highlight, Fresnel refraction, volume absorption; these dominate the appearance of stained glass. In this paper, we combine them to render realistic stained glass. Our approach avoids performing any expensive geometric tests, and involves no pre-computation; both of which are common features in previous work. The rendered stained glass images achieve excellent realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual hull is intersection of cones made by back-projections of reference images. We introduce a real-time rendering method of jaggy-free visual hull on programmable graphics hardware. Visual hull can be rendered quickly by using texture mapping approach. However, jagged artifacts are present near the edges of visual hull faces. In this paper, we solve the problem by using silhouette information. Our implementation demonstrates high-quality rendering results in real-time. Time complexity of our algorithm is $\mathcal{O}$(N), where N is the number of reference images. Thus, the examples in this paper are rendered over one hundred of frames per second without jaggies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Direct Anonymous Attestation (DAA) scheme provides a means for remotely authenticating a trusted platform whilst preserving the user's privacy. The protocol has been adopted by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) in the latest version of its Trusted Platform Module (TPM) specification. In this paper we show DAA places an unnecessarily large burden on the TPM host. We demonstrate how corrupt administrators can exploit this weakness to violate privacy. The paper provides a fix for the vulnerability. Further privacy issues concerning linkability are identified and a framework for their resolution is developed. In addition an optimisation to reduce the number of messages exchanged is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the Deployment Support Network (DSN), a new methodology for developing and testing wireless sensor networks (WSN) in a realistic environment. With an additional wireless backbone network a deployed WSN can be observed, controlled, and reprogrammed completely over the air. The DSN provides visibility and control in a similar way as existing emulation testbeds, but overcomes the limitations of wired infrastructures. As a result, development and experiments can be conducted with realistic in- and outdoor deployments. The paper describes the new concept and methodology. Additionally, an architecture-independent implementation of the toolkit is presented, which has been used in an industrial case-study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer technology has evolved to a position of being able to handle large three-dimensional (3D) data sets. The third dimension is already taken for granted for visualisation on desktop machines. All GIS/CAD vendors are offering extended 3D tools for navigation and exploration of data. NASA World Wind and Google Earth demonstrate the possibilities of 3D to all users of the Web. The advances in geoDBMS are also striking; main stream DBMS support spatial data types, which can be adapted for handling of 3D data. In the same way, mobile computing is experiencing a similar evolution. Large numbers of 3D computer games are already available for handhelds, which give new opportunities to geo-specialists of having 3D geoinformation on mobile devices. Despite the fact that 3D mobile hardware and software technologies are currently still behind desktop 3D in terms of capabilities, the expectations are for two or three times faster development of the mobile 3D market compared to its desktop counterpart. Since location-based services (LBS) are among the first applications that naturally should consider the third dimension, we are going to investigate and evaluate the possible options for evolving to 3D LBS. The paper is going to concentrate and analyse on all the aspects of LBS: positioning, protocols, data retrieval and visualisation. Aspects typical for 3D data sets (large amounts of data, texturing, representations, data models) will be discussed in details. The paper will conclude with recommended topics for research and developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital navigation assistance on Smartphones has recently gained high attention due to capable mobile devices, off-board based navigation software and advancements in wireless network technologies. Mobile information and navigation aids can assist travellers in non-trivial navigation and orientation tasks in unknown geographical regions or transport systems. Whereas car navigation has reached a certain level of maturity, assistance for multimodal travellers especially in public transport networks is still in its infancies. Integration of mobile multimodal journey planning and navigation and guidance in complex public interchange facilities is not adequately addressed by existing systems. Thus, in this paper we propose a personal travel companion on Smartphones for assisting multimodal travellers. We focus on the topics mobile journey planning, pedestrian route calculation, navigation and guidance in public interchange buildings and seamless transition between indoor and outdoor positioning. Moreover the paper describes the prototypical implementation on Off-the-shelf Smartphones and evaluation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the possibilities of augmented reality (AR) as a ubiquitous user interface to the real world. A mobile AR system can constantly provide guidance to its user through visual annotation of the physical environment. The first part of the paper discusses the necessary ingredients for ubiquitous AR, on which we have worked in the recent past, namely mobile AR hardware, wide area tracking, unobtrusive user interfaces, application prototypes, and geographic data models suitable for AR. The second part of the paper examines future requirements of such data models in greater detail. Based on the lessons learned in our previous work, we identify shortcoming of existing standards for geographic information systems and visualization models. Ubiquitous AR requires independence of the data model from specific applications and their implicit assumptions. A semantic network model of geo-referenced data provides such a data model. We examine how such a model fits the requirements of AR applications, and how it can be implemented in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a preliminary stage of some new research comparing the effectiveness of conventional topographic maps and computer-based geovisualisation systems as aids to navigation in wilderness mountain areas in Scotland. The whole programme considers both the cartographic products and the perceptual and mental processes involved in their use but this paper concentrates on some fundamental issues and the results of the first experiment which trialled main procedures and concepts. In both this and the main experiments participants were asked to judge gradients and journey times for various routes presented on maps and interactive animated 3D terrain displays. The first experiment — reported here - compared only terrain models with different surface rendering, and produced unexpected results. Subsequent studies1 included the essential comparative component of the 2D map. When complete this research programme will provide an important evidence base for future mapping system producers seeking to develop generally accessible terrain visualization tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Location-based services in 3G and beyond networks depend on high-accuracy location data. Today's 2G and 3G access networks determine user location in a network-centric manner. The accuracy of these location mechanisms depends on the radio infrastructure near the user's geographical position and is typically limited to hundreds or thousands of meters. This precision is inadequate for typical location-based services like city maps or route planners. In this paper we present a terminal-centric location enabler that integrates seamless with the existing IP Multimedia Subsystem presence architecture and interoperates with network-centric location mechanisms. We argue that the optimal accuracy is achieved by determining the location on the user terminal, which can be equipped with location sources like Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. In consequence, the user terminal should be used as the primary source for location information. We extend the existing and well-known concept of presence by defining location as a type of presence information that is of interest to users. Terminal-based triggers and filters reduce the amount of traffic on the radio interface and enable scalable location architecture. This paper describes the system architecture for a terminal-based location service enabler in the 3G IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large organizations are increasingly confronted with the problem of capturing, processing, and archiving large amounts of data. For several reasons, the problem is especially cumbersome in the case where data is stored on paper. First, the weight, volume, and relative fragility of paper incur problems in handling and require specific, labor-intensive processes to be applied. Second, for automatic processing, the information contained on the pages must be digitized, performing Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This leads to a certain number of errors in the data retrieved from paper. Third, the identities of individual documents become blurred. In a stack of paper, the boundaries between documents are lost, or at least obscured to a large degree.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a theoretical framework for inducing knowledge from incomplete data sets. The general framework can be used with any formalism based on a lattice structure. It is illustrated within two formalisms: the attribute-value formalism and Sowa's conceptual graphs. The induction engine is based on a non-supervised algorithm called default clustering which uses the concept of stereotype and the new notion of default subsumption, inspired by the default logic theory. A validation using artificial data sets and an application concerning the extraction of stereotypes from newspaper articles are given at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]