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In this paper, we propose a human-robot interface in networked and multi-sensored environments. The human robot interface is an essential part of intelligent robotic system. Through the human robot interface, human being can interact with the robot. Especially, in multi-sensored environment, the human robot interface can be developed with remarkably extended functionality. Generally, handheld device such as PDA is a suitable for human robot interface because of its mobility and network ability. In this paper, we select PDA as device of human robot interface. In the implemented framework, the robot user can monitor what happens in multi-sensored environment and control the mobile robot easily and intuitively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial safety can be regarded as a major issue of industrial environments nowadays. This is why industries are currently spending huge amounts of resources to improve safety in all levels by reducing risks of causing damages to equipment, human injuries or even fatalities. This paper describes how Virtual Reality, Human Factors and Rule-based technologies are used in the framework of the VIRTHUALIS Integrated Project towards industrial training, safety management and accident investigation. The paper focuses mainly on the VR system specification and basic modules, while at the same time it presents the main system modules that synthesize the tool as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a new control system interface which utilises the user's eye gaze to enable severely disabled individuals control electronic devices easily. The system is based upon a novel human computer interface, which facilitates simple control of electronic devices by predicting and responding to the user's possible intentions, based intuitively upon their point of gaze. The interface responds by automatically pre-selecting and offering only those controls appropriate to the specific device that the user looks at, in a simple and accessible manner. It therefore affords the user conscious choice of the appropriate range of control actions required, which may be executed by simple means and without the need to navigate manually through potentially complex control menus to reach them. Two systems using the head-mounted and the remote eye tracker respectively are introduced, compared and evaluated in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a device that indicates the direction of an obstacle that is encroaching into the path of a visually impaired person who is walking. Our proposed system, which would resemble a pair of eyeglasses, first detects an obstacle and then indicates its direction and distance to the wearer through puff of air to the forehead. This paper describes the preliminary testing for presenting distance information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new method for robustly extracting moving objects in an environment with varying illuminations. The proposed method applies background subtraction scheme based on hue and hue gradient to minimize the effect of the illumination change. First, we train the background images in the HSI color space and build the Gaussian background model with respect to the hue and hue gradient. Next, image subtraction is performed between the trained background image and the current input image based on the Gaussian background model. Finally, the morphological operations are applied to remove the background noise. In this paper, we compare the previous subtraction schemes to our method applied to both the hand and body tracking in order to prove the robustness of the proposed method in sudden illumination changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of personal electronic equipment has significantly increased during recent years. Augmented Reality (AR) technology enables mobile devices to provide a very rich user experience by combining mobile computing with connectivity and location-awareness. In this paper we discuss the approach and development of an Augmented Reality-based personal assistant, combining the familiar interface of a human person with the functionality of a location-aware digital information system. The paper discusses the main components of the system, including the anthropomorphic user interface as well as the results of an initial prototype evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In real life, most of the tasks we perform throughout the day are first person tasks. Shouldn't these same tasks be realized from a first person point of view in virtual reality? This paper presents a first person Projection-based Visuo-Haptic Environment, and virtual prototyping and data exploration applications taking advantage of the first person visuo-haptic features of this configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The state of the art in vehicle configuration is still very much characterized by a face-to-face sales situation. In addition, web browsers are becoming market places. But direct sales over the internet, without contact with a sales person constitute still a small segment of the market, of only a few percent for European manufacturers. The internet is more used as a medium to gather information. A standardised DIYD vehicle configuration is thus a must for European manufacturers today. This paper presents an Intelligent DIY e-commerce system for vehicle design, based on Ontologies and 3D Visualization, that aims at enabling a suitable representation of products with the most realistic possible visualisation outcome. The platform, designed for the automotive sector, includes all the practicable electronic commerce variants and its on-line product configuration process is controlled by an ontology, that was created using the OWL Web Ontology Language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In implicit human computer interaction, computers are required to understand users' actions and intentions so as to provide proactive services. Visual processing has to detect and understand human actions and then transform them as the implicit input. In this paper an adaptive vision system is presented to solve visual processing tasks in dynamic meeting context. Visual modules and dynamic context analysis tasks are organized in a bidirectional scheme. Firstly human objects are detected and tracked to generate global features. Secondly current meeting scenario is inferred based on these global features, and in some specific scenarios face and hand blob level visual processing tasks are fulfilled to extract visual information for the analysis of individual and interactive events, which can further be adopted as implicit input to the computer system. The experiments in our smart meeting room demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a mobile user interface named personal companion which enables selection and interaction of u-services based on context of user. Personal companion selects u-services from a list of discovered services, supports camera-based selection with embedded marker and personalizes UI of the selected service in ubiquitous computing environment. In order to verify its usefulness, we implemented personal companion on PDA and UMPC platform and deployed into smart home testbed for selecting and interacting with u-services. The proposed personal companion is expected to play a vital role in ubiquitous computing environment by bridging users and u-services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AUK is a 3x3 multi-tier onscreen keyboard. It supports various entry modes, including 1 to 10-key and joystick modes, allowing text entry with a remarkable range of devices. This paper presents the menu structure of AUK, the alternative entry modes, and several layouts for novice, moderate and expert users. The potential of AUK, as a text entry solution both for disabled and able-bodied users, is discussed. Overall, the work presented here is considered as a contribution to Universal Access and towards ambient text entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We like large displays. Also, we love to equip with multiple displays for exercising multiple tasks in parallel. It is not unusual to have multiple large displays in our offices. Therefore, we can see many widgets on multiple large displays and would like to select and manipulate them in more convenient and faster ways. Because the widgets are physically spread in multiple large displays, it is not easy for users to reach them easily. It follows that new interaction techniques must be provided.[1] New interaction techniques for accessing distant widgets on multiple large displays using a tabletop interface called ‘u-Table' [2] are proposed in this paper. Hand gestures are mainly used on tabletop interfaces because of their intuitive, non-invasive and easy operations. We incorporate advantages of existing techniques such as intuitiveness of tabletop interfaces, fastness and simultaneity of existing interaction techniques such as Drag-and-pick [10] and Vacuum [11]. The proposed interaction techniques include fetching, sending, and manipulating distant widgets on multiple large displays. We expect our techniques can be applied various interfaces using hand gestures and heterogeneous displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the shared nature of current network structures, guaranteeing the quality of service (QoS) of Internet applications from an end-to-end is sometimes difficult and then it has been requested to develop smart devices which have multi-modal functionality for ubiquitous network and computing environment. In this paper, we design smart SoftPhone device for guaranteeing QoS which can discover and measure various network parameters during realtime phone-call service through IP network. The smart SoftPhone for discovering and measuring of QoS-factors in realtime consists of four main blocks that is in order to control and measure various parameters independently based on UDP/SIP/RTP protocol during the end-to-end voice service. Also, we provide critical message report procedures and management schemes to guarantee QoS based on using smart SoftPhone device. For the reporting quality parameters optimally during establishing call sessions of VoIP service, we design critical management module blocks for call session and for quality reporting. To sum up, for the performance evaluation of the smart SoftPhone with scientific exactitude of quality factors, we examine the proposed technique based on the realtime phone-call service through heterogeneous network. The experimental results confirm that the developed smart SoftPhone is very useful to quality-measuring for the quality guaranteed realtime VoIP service and then it could also be applied to improve speech quality as a packet compensation device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present current and future approaches to merge intelligent interfaces with immersive Virtual Environments (VEs). The aim of this paper is to substantiate the introductory presentation in the session "Facing Virtual Environments with innovative interaction techniques" at HCI 2007. Although VEs and multimodal interfaces tried to make Human-Computer- Interaction as natural as possible, they have shown serious usability problems. We describe concepts to aid users in supporting their personal cognitive and perceptual capabilities, where the Virtual Environment will adapt dynamically and in real-time to the users' physiological constitution, previous behaviour and desires. With our concept, human performance can be significantly enhanced by adapting interfaces and environments to the users' mental condition and their information management capacity. Health and usability problems caused by stress, workload and fatigue will be avoided. We intend to encourage discussions on this topic among the experts, which are gathered this session. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the study of evaluating VR display types on Brain Computer Interface (BCI) performance. In this study, a configurable virtual reality BCI system was used for users to control the virtual environment to execute the ubiquitous computing home facilities. The study evaluated various VR display types: 2D arrow cue, 3D virtual reality, 3D fully immersive CAVE system, and 3D CAVE cue. The task involved users to imagine left or right arm movements for rotating the direction in the virtual environment and move forward by using a direction locking device. The result shows that there was no significant improvement on BCI classification rate even by enhancing the immersion of VR displays. Instead, the level of simulator sickness was increased. This result indicates a new improved display type is needed for the ubiquitous computing environment control BCI system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the Augmented Ambient project that aims to construct a highly interactive mobility scenario based on augmented reality applications running on heterogeneous multimedia devices. Mobility is made available through ambient networks, which are dynamic computer networks. A case study has been performed about a virtual museum, where users join a service network that includes art pieces visualization, broadcast interview, chat, and remote live auctions. These services are implemented in Desktop, Pocket PC and Symbian OS platforms. Each one has its own limitations related to processing power and content exhibition, which are considered during media exchange. The application development process for each supported platform is detailed in the text that presents also some libraries built to simplify and speed up the development, namely OgreAR, OGRE port for Pocket PC and CIDA, beyond the ambient networks related software infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GOOD ROUTE is a European project developing a cooperative system for routing, monitoring, re-routing, enforcement and driver support of dangerous goods vehicles, based upon dynamic, real time data, in order to minimise the Societal Risks related to their movements, whereas still generating the most cost efficient solution for all actors involved in their logistic chain. In this paper the theoretical background for the Human-Machine Interface of the GOOD ROUTE system is discussed, different actors are characterised and their user needs are described. Basic functionalities and elements as well as the preliminary guidelines that endorse the GOOD ROUTE system approach are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes: elements of a continuous improvement system in an enterprise, teamwork as an approach towards solving problems at workstations (especially problems concerning ergonomic issues) and methods and techniques used in ergonomic standards improvement at the stages of problem identification as well as search and implementation of the solutions. Requirements and conditions for efficient implementation are substantiated for improvements such as: training system, motivational system, system of applying and evaluation of applications, financial support of the implementation process and 5S program as a starting point for ergonomic improvements. Theoretical considerations will be illustrated with examples of improvements implemented in Polish enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context-awareness becomes the key technology in the human computer interaction of ubiquitous computing. The paper discusses the characteristic, significance as well as function of the context, and the properties of the human computer interaction in the ubiquitous environments where the physical space fuses with the information space. These characteristics bring new requirements, that is, mobility, tractability, predictably and personality. To satisfy the demands, we present a method to realize context-awareness and the wireless interaction by using the pervasive RFID tags to track the context and using Bluetooth as the contact-less communication measure. We also construct a prototype system composed of RFID tags, BTEnableReaders and Bluetooth-enable mobile terminals. One case of application scenario is given and the experimental results show that the performance and robustness of the device are suitable for ubiquitous applications and the interaction is experienced more positively by users than the conventional method. The devices we design also can be extended to other application areas such as wearable computing, health care, disable help, and road navigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An Ambient Intelligence Research Facility is being set up at ICS-FORTH, with the goal of providing an experimentation platform for Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies and for studying their potential impact on users as individuals and as society. This paper discusses the opportunities that such a facility will offer towards the investigation of AmI from a Universal Access perspective, focusing in particular on issues related to Design for All. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances in ubiquitous computing have evoked the prospect of real-time monitoring of people's health in context-aware homes. Home is the most private place for people and health information is of highly intimate nature. Therefore, users-at-home must have means to benefit from home healthcare and preserve privacy as well. However, most smart home healthcare systems currently lack support for privacy management for home inhabitants. In this paper, we analyze the privacy needs of smart home inhabitants utilizing a healthcare system and present a conceptual framework to manage disclosure of their personal health information. The proposed framework supports sharing the most meaningful detail of personal health information at different time granularities with different recipients in different contexts. To relieve the burden of configuration, default disclosure settings are provided, and to ensure end-user's control over disclosure, the option to override default settings is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a procedure to learn a topological model of Situated Public Displays from data of people traveling between these displays. This model encompasses the distance between different displays in seconds for different ways and/or different travel modes. It also shows how many people travel between displays in each direction. Thus, the model can be used to predict where and when people will appear next after showing up in front of one display. This can be used for example to create continuous ‘shows' spanning multiple displays while people pass them. To create the model, we use Bluetooth connection data of mobile phones people carry, and employ the EM algorithm to estimate mean travel times for different paths people take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a Conflict Control Manager (CCM) for a ubiquitous services system is presented to prevent the mode confusion of humans. CCM consists of a lock-based conflict detection module and a D-PRI (dynamic priority)-based conflict resolution. By means of CCM, the mode confusion can drastically be reduced, and, as a result, CCM can assist in designing and implementing a human-centered ubiquitous environment. Through a case study, it is observed that CCM can successfully detect and resolve the runtime conflicts caused by multiple devices interconnected in a ubiquitous environment. It can also be used to detect the potential conflict risk during the service registering phase so that computerized devices are deployed to improve the human interactions with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major challenge of Ambient Intelligence lies in building middleware that can ease service implementation through allowing the application developer to emphasize only the service logic. In this paper we describe the architecture of an Ambient Intelligence system established in the scope of the European research project CHIL (Computers in the Human Interaction Loop). CHIL aims at developing and realizing computer services that are delivered to humans in an implicit and unobtrusive way. The framework presented here supports the implementation of human-centric context-aware applications. This includes the presentation of the sensors used in CHIL spaces, the mechanisms employed for controlling sensors and actuating devices, as well as the perceptual components and the middleware approach for combining them in the scope of applications. Special focus lies on the design and implementation of an agent based framework that supports "pluggable" service logic in the sense that the service developer can concentrate on coding the service logic independently of the underlying middleware. Following the description of the framework, we elaborate on how it has been used to support two prototype context-aware human centric and non-obtrusive services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is considered a likely future embodiment of the information society, according to development scenarios proposed worldwide. With reference to the scenarios developed in Europe by the Information Society Technology Advisory Group (ISTAG), this position paper maintains that, up to now, the attention has been more on the smart objects that are supposed to populate the environment and their interfaces than on the "intelligence" of the entire system. The latter is of paramount importance if users are to be served according to the specifications of the AmI environments. Correspondingly, the current notion of Design for All needs to be revised in order to take into account the additional complexity of the emerging information society. Examples of the main points to be considered are offered in order to elicit discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) scenarios place strong emphasis on the fact that interaction takes place through natural interfaces, in such a way that people can perceive the presence of smart objects only when needed. As a possible solution to achieving relaxed and enjoyable interaction with the intelligent environments depicted by AmI, the ambient could be equipped with suitably designed multimodal interfaces bringing up the opportunity to communicate using multiple natural interaction modes. This paper discusses challenges to be faced when trying to design multimodal interfaces that allow for natural interaction with systems, with special attention to speech-based interfaces. It describes an application that was built to serve as a test bed and to conduct evaluation sessions in order to ascertain the impact of multimodal natural interfaces on users and to assess their usability and accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital libraries offer substantial volumes of declarative knowledge to the information society. This paper explores the extent to which current and future digital libraries, also known as ubiquitous knowledge environments, can be made sufficiently usable, accessible and smart to support an inclusive information society and the aspiration of universal access. Using a range of converging methods to evaluate a random sample of such digital library websites, it is concluded that, whilst they act as substantial and functional repositories for knowledge, there is potential to improve, particularly in accessibility and smartness. The current methods are validated through the substantial statistical significance levels and by the meaningful patterns found in the resulting data. A new measure of system smartness is introduced and found to provide a useful metric for present purposes, though it is clear that further work will be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate how to use future interaction technologies to enhance learning technologies. We examine in detail how tracking the mouse pointer and observing the user's gaze can help to monitor the use of web applications and in particular E-learning applications. To improve learning and teaching, it is of interest to understand in what order and to what extent users read texts, how much time they spend on individual parts of the teaching materials, and where they get stuck. Based on a standard web browser as an application platform, extended with a gaze tracking facility, we conducted studies to explore the feasibility of this novel approach. The concept includes an extension of current technologies to allow JavaScript code running in the browser to access the current gaze position of the user. Our work shows how pieces of web technology and eye gaze tracking can be put together to create a new platform for E-learning that provides additional benefits for learners and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a conceptual model towards a context-based attentive interaction. Our focus is to improve the interaction between the user and the application of large tiled display by introducing user context and user attention. Interaction in our proposed system adapts user's visual attention region with the user's changing context based on head movement to achieve an immersive interaction with the tile display. Our experiment uses computer vision to track the user's presence and projects the most attentive regions in a tiled display in high resolution. User will be able to see other regions in higher resolution according to the head movement. At the same time, user attention is captured and modeled to learn the attentive regions to be displayed for other users. This paper will show the experimental result of the effectiveness of the perceptual interaction in a large tiled display environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubiquitous service delivery expects that content will be available where, when and how the user needs it. Consumers are becoming ever demanding and the consumers of ubiquitous services are no different in this regard. Their expectations escalate in terms of relevance, ease of access, recency, accuracy and latency of content supply. In addition they expect that the content be supplied proactively in anticipation of their needs together with delivery when they require it. This presupposes that content can be delivered relative to both the consumers location and their technological context. Within this paper we explore how traditional document access can be transformed and introduce Ambient Documents a new metaphor for document content access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the problems of group discussions and collaborative decision-making, where one or more of the participants are using restrictive interfaces such as mobile phones or PDAs. We suggest possible solutions to some of these problems and present MAVis (Mobile Argumentation Visualizer), a web-based interface built upon upon a balance-beam visual metaphor. We report on user experiences of interacting with the visual metaphor, and on the challenges of transferring this to a multi-user environment supporting mobile devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since a generative 3D face model consists of a large number of vertex points and polygons, a 3D model based face recognition system is generally inefficient in computation time. In this paper, we present a novel 3D face representation method to reduce the number of vertices and optimize its computation time and generate the 3D Korean face model based on the representation method. Also, a pose approximation method is described for initial fitting parameter. Finally, we evaluate the performance of proposed method with the face databases collected using a stereo-camera based 3D face capturing device and a web camera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel approach to natural demonstration of manipulation skills for multimodal interactive robots. The main focus is on the natural demonstration of manipulation skills, especially grasping skills. In order to teach grasping skills to a multimodal interactive robot, a human instructor makes use of natural spoken language and grasping actions demonstrated to the robot. The proposed approach emphasizes on four different aspects of learning by demonstration: First, the dialog system for processing natural speech is considered. Second, an object detection and classification scheme for the robot is shown. Third, the correspondence problem is addressed by an algorithm for visual tracking of the demonstrator's hands in real time and the transformation of the tracking results into an approach trajectory for a robotic arm. The fourth aspect addresses the fine-tuning of the robot's hand configuration for each grasp. It introduces a criterion to evaluate a grasp for stability and possible reuse of a grasped object. The approach produces stable grasps and is applied and evaluated on a multimodal service robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on the method to explore a different type of auditory progress bar by analyzing the characteristics of the visual progress bar and contexts of auditory application. A scenario of bearing in the forward/reverse modes of digital compass is selected to implement the auditory progress bar. The auditory cues play an interactive role in the bearing that they are altered according to the user's operating behavior. Composed of sound signal and silent pause, the auditory cues are generated from a formula based on the warm/cold metaphor. A method incorporating the foreground/ background sounds is also designed to provide different ranges of progress information/progress update expressed through auditory cues. In this report four versions of auditory cues are presented as the solution to the interactive auditory progress bar and a pilot study is evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimodal systems must process several input streams efficiently and represent the input in a way that allows the establishment of connections between modalities. This paper describes a multimodal system that uses Combinatory Categorial Grammars to parse several input streams and translate them into logical formulas. These logical formulas are expressed in Hybrid Logic, which is very suitable for multimodal integration because it can represent temporal relationships between modes in an abstract way. This level of abstraction makes it possible to define rules for multimodal processing in a straightforward way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A real-time gesture tracking and recognition system based on particle filtering and Ada-Boosting techniques is presented in this paper. The particle filter, which is a flexible simulation-based method and suitable for non-linear tracking problems, is adopted to achieve hand tracking robustly. In order to avoid the influence of the other exposed skin parts of a human body and skin-colored objects in the background, our system further applies the motion information as a feature of the hand in addition to the skin color information. Compared with the conventional particle filters, our method leads to more efficient sampling and requires fewer particles. It results in lowering computational cost and saving much time for gesture recognition later. The gesture recognition uses the features derived from the wavelet transform, and employs an Ada-Boost algorithm which is excellent in facilitating the speed of convergence during the training. Hence, it is conducive to update new information and expand new gesture archives. The experimental results reveal our system is fast, accurate, and robust in hand tracking. Moreover, it has good performance in gesture recognition under complicated environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LATERAL SAFE is a subproject of the PREVENT Integrated Project, co-funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme. LATERAL SAFE introduces a cluster of safety applications of the future vehicles, in order to prevent lateral/rear related accidents and assist the driver in adverse or low visibility conditions and blind spot areas. LATERAL SAFE applications include a lateral and rear monitoring system (LRM), a lane change assistant (LCA) and a lateral collision warning (LCW). An effective Human Machine Interface (HMI) is being developed, addressing each application, on the basis of the results emerged from mock-up tests realised in three sites (one in Greece and two in Sweden), aiming to determine which is the best HMI solution to be provided in each case. In the current paper, the final HMI principles, adopted and demonstrated for each application, are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the implementation of a handheld haptic display using verbal and nonverbal communication technologies for visually impaired pedestrians. Wearable and mobile human-computer-interface technologies provide the means to use the display in daily life. Six ring-mounted vibrators for the finger-braille method, one of the commonly used communication methods among deaf-blind people in Japan, and a textual input interface designed on the basis of the braille input method, are adopted as the verbal I/O interface. As the non-verbal I/O interface, a perceptual force attraction method, which can convey "pull" or "push" sensations on handheld devices, is adopted for intuitive way-finding. The handheld haptic display with these technologies integrated has the potential to support wayfinding not only for blind people but also for sighted people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of a Virtual Reality (VR) based therapeutic training system aimed at encourage stroke patients with upper limb motor disorders to practice physical exercises. The system contains a series of physically-based VR games. Physically-based simulation provides realistic motion of virtual objects by modelling the behaviour of virtual objects and their responses to external force and torque based on physics laws. We present opportunities for applying physics simulation techniques in VR therapy and discuss their potential therapeutic benefits to motor rehabilitation. A framework for physically-based VR rehabilitation systems is described which consists of functional tasks and game scenarios designed to encourage patients' physical activity in highly motivating, physics-enriched virtual environments where factors such as gravity can be scaled to adapt to individual patient's abilities and in-game performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The driving force of our current research is the development of medical training systems using augmented reality techniques. To provide multimodal feedback for the simulation, haptic interfaces are integrated into the framework. In this setting, high accuracy and stability are a prerequisite. Misalignment of overlaid virtual objects would greatly compromise manipulative fidelity and the sense of presence, and thus reduce the overall training effect. Therefore, our work targets the precise integration of haptic devices into the augmented environment and the stabilization of the tracking process. This includes a distributed system structure which is able to handle multiple users in a collaborative augmented world. In this paper we provide an overview of related work in medical augmented reality and give an introduction to our developed system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper a VR (Virtual Reality) exposure treatment program for Acrophobia (fear of heights) is introduced and evaluated against an in vivo exposure with the same success rate. During the VR exposure psychophysiological parameters (heart rate, respiratory rate) are collected. VR offers the good opportunity to study psychophysiological effects under almost standardized conditions. The findings reflect partly the somatic correlates during an anxiety attack. Beside the opportunity of standardized circumstances other advantages of VR techniques are discussed (cost effectiveness, enhancement of the narration process, higher user acceptance). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose intuitive motion-based interfaces for map navigation on mobile devices with built-in cameras. The interfaces are based on the visual detection of the devices self-motion. This gives people the experience of navigating maps with a virtual looking glass. We conducted a user study to evaluate the accuracy, sensitivity and responsiveness of our proposed system. Results show that users appreciate our motion-based user interface and find it more intuitive than traditional key-based controls, even though there is a learning curve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opportunities for people with functional limitations are increasing. ICT provides a number of possibilities to receive care, to travel, to work, to educate oneself, to inform oneself and to meet other people. In this paper, the methodology for defining user requirements for supporting people with functional limitations through ICT (the ASK-It Concept) is presented. The methodology covers various domains. A case example as an illustration of the process is used: a communication platform to support social relations and communities. The methodology is built upon the definition of user groups, the elaboration and implementation of relevant action and activity theory principles, and is successively developed with the content modelling procedure, in order to provide a formal description of user information needs in a computer understandable and interoperable format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a study where drivers' responses to an in-vehicle information system were tested in high and low density traffic. There were 17 participants in a study that was run using a driving simulator. Data was gathered for a comparison of how drivers react to an in-vehicle information system in low density traffic, complex traffic, and without system. Participants were also asked for their subjective evaluation of trust of the system and how they perceived it influenced their driving performance. Results show gender differences for both driving performance and attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much effort is spent in developing navigation systems for pedestrians, many users with special needs are mostly excluded due to a lack of appropriate geographical data such as landmarks, waypoints, or obstacles. Such data is necessary for computing suitable routes which might differ from being the shortest or fastest one. In this paper, the concept of multimodal annotation of geographical data for personalized navigation is described. Direct input by the user is combined with data derived from the observation of the user's LOM-Modality (Location, Orientation, and Movement) to annotate geographical data. Based on this data and data derived from other users of the same user group, suitable routes even in unknown territory can be calculated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the adaptation approach for users with disability of nomad devices within the ASK-IT European project funded by the EC 6th Framework Program within the e-Inclusion area. The devices, software and hardware modules involved are described. The User Interface (UI) configuration, defined according to the functional characteristics of specific user groups, is analysed along with the technical specifications of the devices and the provided services. Finally, the current mock-ups of the system for different nomad devices are illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any space available to children can be used as a playground. Such places are getting more and more diminished and isolated from the nearby surroundings. Creating spatial enclaves, apart from undeniable measurable advantages (e.g. safety), causes various negative social and organizational consequences (age discrimination, monotony, uniformization, loosened and deteriorated interpersonal relationships). However, the arranged playgrounds may become a means of an effective psychophysical and social development and rehabilitation of the handicapped children. The paper discusses the following issues: evolution of housing needs of children of all ages, with special concern for spatial requirements connected with children's increased mobility; role of a dwelling, the importance of a child's room and the importance of conditions of acquiring independence and autonomy; the importance of the play environment in the open urban space and the role it plays in the family life and in the life of individual children, and problems of its evolution in the circumstances of the progressing urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging mobile location-based information services enable people to place digital content into the physical world. Based on three technical com ponents (1) mobile devices, (2) wireless networking and (3) location-sensing the implementation of location-based services can be considered state of the art. In contrast, we observe a lack of conceptual work in terms of user interface issues, like designing indirect (one-to-any) addressing models, handling infor mation overflow and avoiding spam. Every user is able to arbitrarily place information anywhere without structure or restrictions, and is confronted with an information mess in return. The focus of this paper concentrates on a novel addressing concept for mobile location-based information services, which systematically structures both direct and indirect addressing methods and supports the users in finding or filtering the information they are interested in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WATCH-OVER is a European project, aiming at the enhancement of road safety and the impairment of traffic accidents involving vulnerable road users (VRUs), such as pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists, in urban and extra-urban areas. The project carries out research and development activities, in order to design an integrated cooperative system for accident prevention. In this paper, the concept of the Human Machine Interface of the WATCH-OVER system is discussed and its user-centred approach, based on a user requirement survey, is described. Regarding the HMI, the basic functionalities and elements, as well as the preliminary guidelines that endorse the WATCH-OVER system approach, are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When looking at the traditional way of conducting human factors research within the active safety area, focus often tends to be on drivers' cognitive capacities like; situation awareness, workload and behavioural adaptation. This research is of course invaluable but other important issues that tend to be forgotten are: What are the drivers' needs and how should an interface be designed to satisfy those needs? This paper describes the process of defining requirements for a dynamic graphical interface for ADAS using a rather new method, Personas, as a starting point in the design process. Based on the Personas different scenarios and narratives were created and used in a workshop to specify user needs and requirements in the interface design for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]