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Internet of Everything (IoE) applications such as haptics, human-computer interaction, and extended reality, using the sixth-generation (6G) of wireless systems have diverse requirements in terms of latency, reliability, data rate, and user-defined performance metrics. Therefore, enabling IoE applications over 6G requires a new framework that can be used to manage, operate, and optimize the 6G wireless system and its underlying IoE services. Such a new framework for 6G can be based on digital twins. Digital twins use a virtual representation of the 6G physical system along with the associated algorithms (e.g., machine learning, optimization), communication technologies (e.g., millimeter-wave and terahertz communication), computing systems (e.g., edge computing and cloud computing), as well as privacy and security-related technologists (e.g., blockchain). First, we present the key design requirements for enabling 6G through the use of a digital twin. Next, the architectural components and trends such as edge-based twins, cloud-based-twins, and edge-cloud-based twins are presented. Furthermore, we provide a comparative description of various twins. Finally, we outline and recommend guidelines for several future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The graphical user interface (GUI) has become the prime means for interacting with computing systems. It leverages human perceptual and motor capabilities for elementary tasks such as command exploration and invocation, information search, and multitasking. For designing a GUI, numerous interconnected decisions must be made such that the outcome strikes a balance between human factors and technical objectives. Normally, design choices are specified manually and coded within the software by professional designers and developers. This article surveys combinatorial optimization as a flexible and powerful tool for computational generation and adaptation of GUIs. As recently as 15 years ago, applications were limited to keyboards and widget layouts. The obstacle has been the mathematical definition of design tasks, on the one hand, and the lack of objective functions that capture essential aspects of human behavior, on the other. This article presents definitions of layout design problems as integer programming tasks, a coherent formalism that permits identification of problem types, analysis of their complexity, and exploitation of known algorithmic solutions. It then surveys advances in formulating evaluative functions for common design-goal foci such as user performance and experience. The convergence of these two advances has expanded the range of solvable problems. Approaches to practical deployment are outlined with a wide spectrum of applications. This article concludes by discussing the position of this application area within optimization and human–computer interaction research and outlines challenges for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many frontiers in computing, each with its own unique profundity in the types of changes it brings forward. With AI, the changes we see will remind us that the playing field for humans and computers is not equal, and how this technology contributes to our lives will present both incredible opportunities as well as some troubling challenges. In this special issue, Computer’s editor in chief introduces some of the emerging transformations the future of AI brings to us as humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of displays we interact with rapidly increases, managing user attention has emerged as a critical challenge for next-generation human-computer interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As our minds and bodies increasingly drive effective control of computing technologies, our computers will adjust according to our physiological cues. Will it become difficult to distinguish where we end and our computers begin? The Web extra at https://youtu.be/_nLqjHTTVPg is a audio interview in which Rob Jacob talks with guest editors Giulio Jacucci, Stephen Fairclough, and Erin T. Solovey about how advancements in physiological computing might someday blur the distinction of where our bodies end and our computers begin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of emotional and social signals in multimedia has not been a core concern of the multimedia research community--an omission explored at the 22nd ACM International Conference on Multimedia during a panel titled, "Emotional and Social Signals in Multimedia: Where Art Thou?" The panel discussion revealed major gaps in the formulation, understanding, and application of emotional and social signal processing in the multimedia domain. Here, the authors review the challenges in bringing this new domain to multimedia, summarizing current feelings in the research community based on discussions during the panel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A new kind of smart space is emerging in which digital, physical, and social layers are strongly intertwined. These spaces extend the classic assistive functionality of ambient intelligence toward more proactive possibilities, where the smart environment not only monitors people as they perform tasks but also influences their plans and intentions. The authors explore this concept of the smart space as a mirror world, looking in particular at how it will affect our cognitive abilities and noting some of the research challenges that will need to be addressed. This department is part of a special issue on smart spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the role of cyber-physical systems (CPS) in the society. It mentions that the society has a greater need for ground-breaking capabilities in terms of transportation as well as virtual teleportation. CPS is described as a new class of systems that incorporate cyber capabilities in the physical world to carry out changes in the interactions with the physical world. It is said that cyber-physical interactions will be improved by CPS through processes such as nanosystems and geographically dispersed systems-of-systems.

A wirelessly operated, minimally invasive retinal prosthesis was developed for preclinical chronic implantation studies in Yucatan minipig models. The implant conforms to the outer wall of the eye and drives a microfabricated polyimide stimulating electrode array with sputtered iridium oxide electrodes. This array is implanted in the subretinal space using a specially designed ab externo surgical technique that fixes the bulk of the prosthesis to the outer surface of the sclera. The implanted device is fabricated on a host polyimide flexible circuit. It consists of a 15-channel stimulator chip, secondary power and data receiving coils, and discrete power supply components. The completed device is encapsulated in poly(dimethylsiloxane) except for the reference/counter electrode and the thin electrode array. In vitro testing was performed to verify the performance of the system in biological saline using a custom RF transmitter circuit and primary coils. Stimulation patterns as well as pulse strength, duration, and frequency were programmed wirelessly using custom software and a graphical user interface. Wireless operation of the retinal implant has been verified both in vitro and in vivo in three pigs for more than seven months, the latter by measuring stimulus artifacts on the eye surface using contact lens electrodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses a tension between the flexibility of general inference-based approaches and the speed afforded by structured approaches in human-level intelligence. It considers reasoned unification as an approach in solving these problems. It uses examples in reference resolution to explain and demonstrate reasoned unification.

The article presents some projects in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory's Responsive Environments Group, which aimed in interfacing humans with omnipresent sensor/actuator networks. An overview of some examples of cross-reality environments that push virtual development in Second Life virtual platform done by real-world sensor data. Moreover, projects that uses a wearable token in managing dynamic privacy, is also mentioned.

Human motion indexing and retrieval is important for animators due to the need to search the databases for motions which can suitably be blended and concatenated. Most of the previous researches of human motion indexing and retrieval compute the Euclidean distance of joint angles or joint positions. Such approaches are difficult to apply for cases in which multiple characters are closely interacting with each other, as the relationships of the characters are not encoded in the representation. In this research, we propose a topology-based approach to index the motions of two human characters in close contact. We compute and encode how the two bodies are tangled based on the concept of rational tangles. The encoded relationships, which we define as TangleList, are used to determine the similarity of the pairs of postures. Using our method, we can index and retrieve motions such as one person piggy backing another, one person assisting another in walking, and two persons dancing/wrestling. Our method is useful to manage a motion database of multiple characters. We can also produce motion graph structures of two characters closely interacting with each other by interpolating and concatenating topologically similar postures and motion clips, which are applicable to 3D computer games and computer animation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of information visualization holds tremendous promise for the electric power industry, but its potential has so far not been sufficiently exploited by the visualization community. Prior work on visualizing electric power systems has been limited to depicting raw or processed information on top of a geographic layout. Little effort has been devoted to visualizing the physics of the power grids, which ultimately determines the condition and stability of the electricity infrastructure. Based on this assessment, we developed a novel visualization system prototype, GreenGrid, to explore the planning and monitoring of the North American Electricity Infrastructure. This paper discusses the rationale underlying the GreenGrid design, describes its implementation and performance details, and assesses its strengths and weaknesses against the current geographic-based power grid visualization. We also present a case study using GreenGrid to analyze the information collected moments before the last major electric blackout in the Western United States and Canada and a usability study to evaluate the practical significance of our design in simulated real life situations. Our result indicates that many of the disturbance characteristics can be readily identified with the proper form of visualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity to estimate the head pose of another person is a common human ability that presents a unique challenge for computer vision systems. Compared to face detection and recognition, which have been the primary focus of face-related vision research, identity-invariant head pose estimation has fewer rigorously evaluated systems or generic solutions. In this paper, we discuss the inherent difficulties in head pose estimation and present an organized survey describing the evolution of the field. Our discussion focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and spans 90 of the most innovative and characteristic papers that have been published on this topic. We compare these systems by focusing on their ability to estimate coarse and fine head pose, highlighting approaches that are well suited for unconstrained environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the significance of intelligent home services systems in enhancing resident's convenience and safety. It suggests that to raise the human pattern of living, systems that consist of ubiquitous sensors, home networks, and a context-aware computing systems should be considered, including appliances, multimedia components, and Internet devices. It also presents the overview of pyroelectric infrared (PIR) sensor-based indoor location-aware system (PILAS), a nonterminal-based location aware system which uses an array of PIR sensor to detect the presence of a resident.

A system is t-diagnosable if all faulty nodes can be identified without replacement when the number of faults does not exceed t, where t is some positive integer. Furthermore, a system is strongly t-diagnosable if it is t-diagnosable and can achieve (t + 1)-diagnosability except for the case where a node's neighbors are all faulty. In this paper, we propose some conditions for verifying whether a class of interconnection networks, called Matching Composition Networks (MCNs), are strongly diagnosable under the comparison diagnosis model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the cases of paralysis so severe that a person's ability to control movement is limited to the muscles around the eyes, eye movements or blinks are the only way for the person to communicate. Interfaces that assist in such communication are often intrusive, require special hardware, or rely on active infrared illumination. A nonintrusive communication interface system called EyeKeys was therefore developed, which runs on a consumer-grade computer with video input from an inexpensive Universal Serial Bus camera and works without special lighting. The system detects and tracks the person's face using multiscale template correlation. The symmetry between left and right eyes is exploited to detect if the person is looking at the camera or to the left or right side. The detected eye direction can then be used to control applications such as spelling programs or games. The game "BlockEscape" was developed to evaluate the performance of EyeKeys and compare it to a mouse substitution interface. Experiments with EyeKeys have shown that it is an easily used computer input and control device for able-bodied people and has the potential to become a practical tool for people with severe paralysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new numerical software package to analyze spacecraft charging, named "Multi-Utility Spacecraft Charging Analysis Tool" (MUSCAT), has been developed. MUSCAT consists of an integrated graphical user interface tool called "Vineyard" and the solver. Vineyard enables satellite engineers to compute spacecraft charging with little knowledge of the numerical calculations. Functions include 3-D satellite modeling, parameter input such as material and orbit environment, data transfer, and visualization of numerical results. Fundamental physical processes of charged-particle-surface interaction are included in the solver. These functions enable MUSCAT to analyze spacecraft charging at geostationary orbit, low Earth orbit, and polar Earth orbit (PEO). The numerical solver code is parallelized for high-speed computation, and the algorithm is optimized to achieve analysis of large-scale PEO satellite in the design phase. Variable time steps are also used to calculate the rapid change of the spacecraft body potential and the gradual change of the differential voltage in a single simulation with a practical number of iterations. In this paper, the functionality, algorithms, and simulation examples of MUSCAT are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the interaction of Pen-Centric computing in designing natural user interface for multimedia information in Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The adaptability of Pen-Centric computing to a wide spectrum of environments distinguishes itself in conceptualizing a design. It discusses the three areas from which the study is focused including math beyond recognition, chemistry and diagramming. Additionally, the researchers suggests that pen-computing is essential in augmenting, even replacing the windows, icon, menu, pointing device (WIMP) GUI interaction with more efficient mode of interaction closer to the ideal of user-interface transparency.

The article presents the authors' views on the advancement and trends in pervasive computing and the future of multimedia. It mentions that the changes and developments in the digital multimedia technologies and pervasive computing describe a trend where computing has become part of human's everyday life. The production of these new visual and nonvisual technologies will broaden the impression of media presentation as it bridges the experience gap between the real and virtual worlds. The authors impart that it is possible to create magic beyond the screen given the current technologies and trends in pervasive computing and multimedia technologies. Additionally, they mention that overall user experience with multimedia plays an important role in moving forward to magical experiences.

Robotic exploration is an excellent method for obtaining information about sites too dangerous for people to explore. The operator's understanding of the environment depends on the rover returning useful information. Robotic mission bandwidth is frequently constrained, limiting the amount of information the rover can return. This paper explores the tradeoff between information and bandwidth based on two years of observations during a robotic astrobiology field study. The developed theory begins by analyzing the search task conducted by robot operators. This analysis leads to an information optimization model. Important parameters in the model include the value associated with detecting a target, the probability of locating a target, and the bandwidth required to collect the information from the environment. Optimizing the information return between regions creates an image and provides the necessary information while reducing bandwidth. Application of the model to the analyzed field study results in an optimized image that requires 48.3% less bandwidth to collect. The model also predicts several data collection patterns that could serve as the basis of data collection templates for improving mission effectiveness. The developed optimization model reduces the bandwidth necessary to collect information, thus aiding missions in collecting more information from the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As collaborative Web-based platforms evolve into service-oriented architectures, they promote composite and user-enriched services. In such platforms, the collaborations typically involve both humans and software services, thus creating highly dynamic and complex interactions. However, today's collaboration tools don't let humans specify different interaction interfaces (services), which can be reused in various collaborations. Furthermore, humans need more ways to indicate their availability and desire to participate in collaborations. The Human-Provided Services (HPS) framework lets people manage their interactions and seamlessly integrate their capabilities into Web-scale workflows as services. It unifies humans and software services and supports ad hoc and process-centric collaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An instrumented data glove with a wireless interface provides convenient and natural human-computer interaction for people with speech or hearing impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information about the future innovations in computing technology. Computing is defined as the oneness of issues including conventional computer science, human-computer interaction (HCI), graphics and animation, robotics, and theoretical foundations. In accordance to computing, GVU Center for research has been created. It aims to study, predict, and design future innovations in computing based. Its extensive mission is to manage interdisciplinary research at the intersection of people and computing.

Hybrid systems combine discrete state dynamics which model mode switching, with continuous state dynamics which model physical processes. Hybrid systems can be controlled by affecting both their discrete mode logic and continuous dynamics: in many systems, such as commercial aircraft, these can be controlled both automatically and using manual control. A human interacting with a hybrid system is often presented, through information displays, with a simplified representation of the underlying system. This user interface should not overwhelm the human with unnecessary information, and thus usually contains only a subset of information about the true system model, yet, if properly designed, represents an abstraction of the true system which the human is able to use to safely interact with the system. In safety-critical systems, correct and succinct interfaces are paramount: interfaces must provide adequate information and must not confuse the user. We present an invariance-pre- serving abstraction which generates a discrete event system that can be used to analyze, verify, or design user-interfaces for hybrid human-automation systems. This abstraction is based on hybrid system reachability analysis, in which, through the use of a recently developed computational tool, we find controlled invariant regions satisfying a priori safety constraints for each mode, and the controller that must be applied on the boundaries of the computed sets to render the sets invariant. By assigning a discrete state to each computed invariant set, we create a discrete event system representation which reflects the safety properties of the hybrid system. This abstraction, along with the formulation of an interface model as a discrete event system, allows the use of discrete techniques for interface analysis, including existing interface verification and design methods. We apply the abstraction method to two examples: a car traveling through a yellow light at an intersection, and an aircraft autopilot in a landing/go-around maneuver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses EventWeb, a human-centered computing system (HCC). Computers have been evolving since they were first created to mimic the analytical abilities of humans, first as calculators and then as electronic computers with advanced processing, storage, communication, and other related areas. HCC ranges across aspects of computing from human computer interfaces to virtual reality systems with a focus on the quality of content. Changes in the evolution of computing has included input and output, applications, and user expectations.

In this paper, we describe the acquisition and contents of a large-scale Chinese face database: the CAS-PEAL face database. The goals of creating the CAS-PEAL face database include the following: 1) providing the worldwide researchers of face recognition with different sources of variations, particularly pose, expression, accessories, and lighting (PEAL), and exhaustive ground-truth information in one uniform database; 2) advancing the state-of-the-art face recognition technologies aiming at practical applications by using off-the-shelf imaging equipment and by designing normal face variations in the database; and 3) providing a large-scale face database of Mongolian. Currently, the CAS-PEAL face database contains 99594 images of 1040 individuals (595 males and 445 females). A total of nine cameras are mounted horizontally on an arc arm to simultaneously capture images across different poses. Each subject is asked to look straight ahead, up, and down to obtain 27 images in three shots. Five facial expressions, six accessories, and 15 lighting changes are also included in the database. A selected subset of the database (CAS-PEAL-R1, containing 30863 images of the 1040 subjects) is available to other researchers now. We discuss the evaluation protocol based on the CAS-PEAL-R1 database and present the performance of four algorithms as a baseline to do the following: 1) elementarily assess the difficulty of the database for face recognition algorithms; 2) preference evaluation results for researchers using the database; and 3) identify the strengths and weaknesses of the commonly used algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current image processing and pattern recognition algorithms are not robust enough to make automated remote sensing image interpretation feasible. For this reason, we need to develop image interpretation systems that rely on human guidance. In this paper, we tackle the problem of semiautomatic road tracking in aerial photos. We propose an online learning approach that naturally integrates inputs from human experts with computational algorithms to learn road tracking. Human inputs provide the online learner with training examples to generate road predictors. An ensemble of road predictors is learned incrementally and used to automatically track roads. When novel situations are encountered, control is returned back to the human expert to initialize a new training and tracking iteration. Our approach is computationally efficient, and it can rapidly adapt to dynamic situations where the image feature distributions change. Experimental results confirm that our approach is effective and superior to existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty years after the publication of Patricia Sullivan's "Beyond a narrow conception of usability testing" in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, three scholars-all Sullivan's students-reflect on the history and development of usability testing and research. Following Sullivan, this article argues that usability bridges the divide between science and rhetoric and asserts that usability is most effective when it respects the knowledge-making practices of a variety of disciplines. By interrogating trends in usability method, the authors argue for a definition of usability that relies on multiple epistemologies to triangulate knowledge-making. The article opens with a brief history of the development of usability methods and argues that usability requires a balance between empirical observation and rhetoric. Usability interprets human action and is enriched by articulating context and accepting contingency. Usability relies on effective collaboration and cooperation among stakeholders in the design of technology. Ultimately, professional and technical communication scholars are best prepared to coin new knowledge with a long and wide view of usability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrophysiological signals of the developing fetal brain and heart can be investigated by fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG). During such investigations, the fetal heart activity and that of the mother should be monitored continuously to provide an important indication of current well-being. Due to physical constraints of an fMEG system, it is not possible to use clinically established heart monitors for this purpose. Considering this constraint, we developed a real-time heart monitoring system for biomagnetic measurements and showed its reliability and applicability in research and for clinical examinations. The developed system consists of real-time access to fMEG data, an algorithm based on Independent Component Analysis (ICA), and a graphical user interface (GUI). The algorithm extracts the current fetal and maternal heart signal from a noisy and artifact-contaminated data stream in real-time and is able to adapt automatically to continuously varying environmental parameters. This algorithm has been named Adaptive Real-time ICA (ARICA) and is applicable to real-time artifact removal as well as to related blind signal separation problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe our own stance on a research area called "Humatronics," which aims at establishing a (more) symmetric interaction relationship between humans and computer systems. In particular, we will advocate a novel approach to understanding humans that is based on largely involuntary and unconscious physiological information and gaze behavior rather than purposeful and conscious actions or behaviors. "Understanding humans" here refers to users' states related to emotion and affect, attention and interest, and possibly even to their intentions. A key feature of our approach is that it provides insight into a person's cognitive-motivational state without relying on cognitive judgements, such as answers to dedicated queries. Lifelike interface agents are endowed with synthetic bodies and faces and can be considered as prime candidates for outbalancing the asymmetric relationship in current human-computer interaction. As example applications, we will report on two recent studies that utilized lifelike agents as presenters or interaction partners of users. The resulting interactions can be conceived as implementing initial steps toward symmetric multimodality in user interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses on several studies building on theories and research from several domains investigating how gender differences interact with software. Gender differences suggest that females process information and solve problems in different ways than males do. It investigates whether software design should take gender differences into account. It discusses gender human-computer interaction which refers to how software relates to gender differences. It focuses on how gender-neutral software works, not on gender-oriented content.

Power has become a major concern for mobile computing systems such as laptops and handhelds, on which a significant fraction of software usage is interactive instead of compute-intensive. For interactive systems, an analysis shows that more than 90 percent of system energy and time is spent waiting for user input. Such idle periods provide vast opportunities for dynamic power management (DPM) and voltage scaling (DVS) techniques to reduce system energy. In this work, we propose to utilize user interface information to predict user delays based on human-computer interaction history and theories from the field of psychology. We show that such a delay prediction can be combined with DPM/DVS for aggressive power optimization. We verify the effectiveness of our methodologies with usage traces collected on a personal digital assistant (PDA) and a system power model based on accurate measurements. Experiments show that using predicted user delays for DPM/DVS achieves an average of 21.9 percent system energy reduction with little sacrifice in user productivity or satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the research regarding the identity-differentiating widgets (iDwidgets). This kind of widgets are fundamental graphical user interface blocks for user-aware environments, like the multiuser interactive tables. The researchers aim for the iDwidgets is to increase a widget's usefulness and support reuse. They have developed several sample of applications using iDwidget prototypes. The researchers offer example implementations of iDwidgets from the four categories that can be customized by identity differentiation including function, content, appearance, and group input. Researchers concluded that the iDwidget concept allows interactions with widgets to be dynamically adapted on a per-user basis for group usage. INSET: Related Work.

The article discusses the research on tabletops at Stanford University in California, focusing on how tabletop user interfaces may respond to and influence a user group's social dynamics. The researchers offer an overview of four projects including the Multi-User Coordination Policies, cooperative gesturing, educational tabletop interfaces, and Shared Interfaces for Developing Effective Social Skills. Researchers found that offering users with the ability to dynamically change document accessibility on a tabletop can help shared document inspection and alteration, while also allowing users to protect their data from tendencies of users to interact with other group members's content on

The article discusses about the digital tabletops interaction. A digital tabletop is different from the standard desktop computer in that it tempts researchers to challenge traditional perspectives on human-computer interaction, like rethinking the use of a computer as a solitary act and the kinds of activities people want to do with their computers. An exciting feature of conducting research related to digital tabletops is that both the hardware and software aspects tabletop workspaces continue to evolve, offering various possibilities and opportunities to explore design approaches. The demand to support simultaneous multiuser interaction is the cause of the variations in input devices contained in tabletop systems.

The article presents the computing system, Just-for-Us, a prototype mobile Web service using a series HP iPAQh5550s developed by researchers in the human-computer interaction community as well as sociologists, city architects, planners and designers. It is part of the e-Spective investigating the association of pervasive computing and mobile communication technologies and social behavior. This computer system design for public use was based on the architectural and sociological field studies of Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia.

The article focuses on the development of scientific computing systems. It mentions that user interfaces are intended to include more domain-specific and problem-specific ideas and concepts. Scientists play the primary role in determining what's meaningful and valuable for building scientific user interfaces. Moreover, the human-computer interaction (HCI) designers and software engineers focus on the development of intelligent and visual tools and systems wherein it offers scientists with expressive powers while still maintaining the levels of scientific fidelity.

The article focuses on the computational approaches that can be applied to the use and recognition of verbally expressed humor in text-based applications. Studies related to computational humor are important aspects in various fields such as interactive entertainment, human-computer interaction and computer-assisted education. The investigation focuses on the one liner style of humor or a short sentence with comic effects and linguistic structure with the use of simple, rhetoric devices, and creative language constructions intended to attract the attention of readers.

The article focuses on the development of intelligent interactive entertainment. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and human-computer interaction provide an opportunity to improve the traditional forms of entertainment. AI application includes the human-computer interaction that involves several aspects of an intelligent interface such as multimodal, tailored, interactive, mixed-initiative and model-based interactivity. Multimodal interface supports multimedia input and output generation such as audio and visual generation while cooperative interfaces help users in detecting and correcting misconceptions and misattributions.

The article proposes a multiclient collaborative system that overcomes various small-screen Web browsing difficulties by offering a two-level browsing scheme. The proposed system comprises four main components: the communication supporter maintains communication between devices in an ambient environment; the interaction watcher observes a user's Web browsing interactions on the master device; the collaboration translator parses user ineractions into corresponding display updates on slave devices; the collaboration performer can be found in slave devices and automatically displays information updates from the master device on a client browser.

The article focuses on the unique requirements for discovery technologies in ubiquitous computing, which let services and devices become aware of each other without explicit human administration. Discovery is a mechanism for dynamically referencing a resource on the network. Discovery-based systems offer a more dynamic, fluid interaction model than naming-based systems. Although discovery systems' high-level goals are largely the same, individual systems achieve such goals differently. Variations emerge from differences in application domain and usage scenarios. The most important dimensions characterizing discovery systems include topology, transport, scope, search and security.

The article discusses the self-supported and infrastructure-based computing approaches to creating context-aware artifacts. A context-aware artifact employs sensors to perceive the context of humans or other artifacts and sensibly respond to it. In self-supported context awareness, designers create the ability to perceive context, reason with it, and act accordingly into the device or its dedicated hardware support. In infrastructure-supported context awareness, designers obtain context-aware capabilities by harnessing a hardware and software infrastructure external to and associated with the device's space.

The article discusses the importance of considering both primary and secondary computer users when designing for intermediated interaction scenarios in India and elsewhere in the developing world. A taxonomy of intermediated information tasks was created from observed usage scenarios in India. The taxonomy is categorized according to the intermediation level, the degree to which a secondary user has direct access to the computing device. The categories are cooperative, dominated, intermediated and indirect. If cooperative interaction is the goal, points must be observed where domination is occurring and mechanisms must be provided supporting more equitable access.

The article presents a proposal for a model of humor comprehension based on frame-shifting within a simulation-based natural-language-understanding system. It discusses the computational benefits of incremental semantic processing for word recognition and contextual integration. The Embodied Construction Grammar (ECG), a natural-language-understanding system with simulation-based architecture, and its two main processes are discussed. The processes involved in incorporating linguistic humor in natural-language-understanding systems are also discussed.

The article reports on the development of a user-profiling strategy for intelligent agents that personalizes and improves the interaction between a user and his or her personal agent. Contextual data were captured and modeled to enable the agent to learn how to behave and interact in various situations. The strategy was contrasted with the usual confidence-based method in the calendar management domain. On the average, the proposed strategy had a higher overall percentage of correct assistance actions, assistance interactions, or interactions compared to the confidence-based algorithm.

The article focuses on human-computer interaction. People have interacted with computers from the start, but it took time for human-computer interaction (HCI) to become a recognized field of research. Related journals, conferences, and professional associations appeared in the 1970s and 1980s. HCI is in the curricula of research universities, primarily in computer science, yet it has not coalesced into a single discipline. The article identifies historical, conceptual, and cultural distinctions among three major research threads. One thread extended human factors or engineering psychology to computing. Another developed when mainframes spawned business computing in the 1960s. The third, focused, on individual use, arose with minicomputers and home computers and burgeoned with personal computing in the 1980s. Although they share some issues and methods, these research efforts have not converged. They emerged within different parent disciplines, at different times, and comprised different generations of researchers.