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Despite the promising results achieved in last years by statistical machine translation, and more precisely, by the neural machine translation systems, this technology is still not error-free. The outputs of a machine translation system must be corrected by a human agent in a post-editing phase. Interactive protocols foster a human–computer collaboration, in order to increase productivity. In this work, we integrate the neural machine translation into the interactive machine translation framework. Moreover, we propose new interactivity protocols, in order to provide the user an enhanced experience and a higher productivity. Results obtained over a simulated benchmark show that interactive neural systems can significantly improve the classical phrase-based approach in an interactive-predictive machine translation scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inertial navigation system (INS)/Doppler velocity log (DVL) integration is the most common navigation solution for underwater vehicles. Due to the complex underwater environment, the velocity information provided by DVL always contains some errors. To improve navigation accuracy, zero velocity update (ZUPT) technology is considered, which is an effective algorithm for land vehicles to mitigate the navigation error during the pure INS mode. However, in contrast to ground vehicles, the ZUPT solution cannot be used directly for underwater vehicles because of the existence of the water current. In order to leverage the strengths of the ZUPT method and the INS/DVL solution, an interactive multiple model (IMM)-aided ZUPT methodology for the INS/DVL-integrated underwater navigation system is proposed. Both the INS/DVL and INS/ZUPT models are constructed and operated in parallel, with weights calculated according to their innovations and innovation covariance matrices. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the proposed algorithm. The results indicate that the IMM-aided ZUPT solution outperforms both the INS/DVL solution and the INS/ZUPT solution in the underwater environment, which can properly distinguish between the ZUPT and non-ZUPT conditions. In addition, during DVL outage, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is also verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactivity is central to digital products, systems and experiences. It has long been studied from different disciplinary perspectives but while applications continue to be described as 'more' or 'less' interactive, there is a lack of consensus on its meaning. One approach to improving understanding is to focus on the different ways we talk about it rather than pursuing a single all-purpose definition. This study examines how interactivity is treated in a sample of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research papers (N = 117). We use a combined content and discourse analysis approach to explore the range of definitions and technical configurations associated with the concept and unpick the wider discourses around it. We find it frequently described as a characteristic of technologies, an instrumental approach that suits quantitative measurement, but is acknowledged to miss other qualities. We also find qualitative user assessments that measure a spectrum of low to high interactivity, which are interpreted in different ways due to a lack of explicit definitions. The analysis reveals rich discursive material where different layered conceptions of interactivity arise, which we describe as 'modes' of interactivity. The dominant mode in HCI is 'empowerment', also found most frequently in public discourse. We offer modes of interactivity as a design and evaluation tool for more conscious consideration of this multidimensional concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past four decades, the prophecy from computer pundits and prognosticators pointed to the looming arrival of the paperless office era. However, forty years later, physical paper documents are still playing a significant role due to the ease of use, superior readability, and availability. The drawbacks of paper sheets are that they are hard to modify and retrieve, have limited space, and are environmentally unfriendly. Augmenting paper documents with digital information from mobile devices extends the two-dimensional space of physical paper documents. Various camera-based recognition and detection devices have been proposed to augment paper documents with digital information. However, there are still some limitations that exist in these systems. This paper presents a novel, low cost, spatially aware, mobile system called Ultrasonic PhoneLens. The Ultrasonic PhoneLens adopts two-dimensional dynamic image presentation and ultrasonic sound positioning techniques. It consists of two ultrasonic sound sensors, one Arduino mini-controller board, and one android mobile device. Based on the location of the mobile device over the physical paper, Ultrasonic PhoneLens can retrieve pre-saved digital information from a mobile database for the object (such as a text, a paragraph, or an image) in a paper document. An empirical study was conducted to evaluate the system performance. The results indicate that our system has a better performance in tasks such as browsing multivalent documents and sharing digital information than the Wiimote PhoneLens system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of new digital tools supporting immersive and engaging learning through Virtual Reality is opening up new paths for both distance, but also classroom learning. In this article we discuss the virtual physics laboratory "Maroon" and discuss experiences with Maroon in a cost-effective mobile setup with a mobile VR experience through Samsung GEAR and compare it with a more interactive VR experience in room-scale VR with HTC Vive. We describe a comparative evaluation of these two setups in order to identify chances and challenges of both setups. First results indicate more flexibility and portability with the mobile setup, while the room-scale setup profits of a highly interactive and hands-on experience. We discuss and compare the two setups based on immersion, engagement, presence, and motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a method to solve the selection problem of principal components in machine learning algorithms based on orthogonal transformation using interactive evolutionary computation. The orthogonal transformation presents a linear transformation method that preserves the inner product in the two coordinate systems, the one is before the transformation, and the other is after the transformation. One of the addressed subjects for machine learning algorithms based on orthogonal transformation is how to decide the number of principal components, and which of the principal components should be used to reconstruct the original data. In this work, we use the interactive differential evolution algorithm to study these subjects using real humans' subjective evaluation in optimization process. An image compression problem using principal component analysis is introduced to study the proposed method. We do not only solve the selection problem of principal components for machine learning algorithms based on orthogonal transformation using interactive evolutionary computation, but also can analyse the human aesthetical characteristics on visual perception and feature selection arising from the designed method and experimental evaluation. We also discuss and analyse potential research subjects and some open topics, which are invited to further investigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a set of interactive evolutionary multiple objective optimization (MOO) methods, called NEMO-GROUP. All proposed approaches incorporate pairwise comparisons of several decision makers (DMs) into the evolutionary search, though evaluating the suitability of solutions for inclusion in the next population in different ways. The performance of algorithms is quantified with various convergence factors derived from the extensive computational tests on a set of benchmark problems. The best individuals and complete populations of solutions constructed by the proposed approaches are evaluated in terms of both utilitarian and egalitarian group value functions for different numbers of DMs. Our results indicate that more promising directions for optimization can be discovered when exploiting the set of value functions compatible with the DMs' preferences rather than selecting a single representative value function for each DM or all DMs considered jointly. We demonstrate that NEMO-GROUP is flexible enough to account for the weights assigned to the DMs. We also show that by appropriately adjusting the elicitation interval and starting generation of the elicitation, one could significantly decrease the number of pairwise comparisons the DMs need to perform to construct a satisfactory solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a current trend in course development to increase the number of “rich-media” items available to students; these include items like key-concept videos, interactive activities and quizzes, and even captures of the full lectures. It is therefore important to understand which of these resources students use and gain value from so that we can target the best resources for student learning. This paper looks at several courses taught in the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science at The University of Manchester to several year groups; including lecture based courses, distance learning courses, and non-lecture based activities; that contain “rich-media” resources. The use of these items by students is examined; including number of uses, time of use, and local retention. The student opinion on the items and how they felt they have affected their learning is also analysed. This allows results to be presented on the most useful types of resource for students providing information for future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new research area called interactive task learning (ITL), in which an agent actively tries to learn not just how to perform a task better but the actual definition of a task through natural interaction with a human instructor while attempting to perform the task. The authors provide an analysis of desiderata for ITL systems, a review of related work, and a discussion of possible application areas for ITL systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Enabling interactive access to multimedia content and evaluating content-consumption behaviors and experiences involve several different research areas, which are covered at many different conferences. For four years, the Workshop on Interactive Content Consumption (WSICC) series offered a forum for combining interdisciplinary, comprehensive views, inspiring new discussions related to interactive multimedia. Here, the authors reflect on the outcome of the series. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Usability is a critical quality attribute in the information society. Inspection based evaluation relies on various forms of design knowledge that are used to assess the usability, such as ergonomic criteria, heuristics, and guidelines. Usability heuristics are widely recognized principles against which the usability of an interactive system could be evaluated. This work presents a revised set of usability heuristics that are based on the experience acquired in previous studies targeting local e-government websites. The underlying goal is to include the most important ergonomic criteria and usability heuristics into a clear hierarchical organization, which helps evaluators to better explain and developers to better understand the usability problems. The new set has only fourteen heuristics that are structured into four groups: user guidance, user effort, user control and freedom, and user support. The main strength of this approach is the good coverage achieved with a reduced number of heuristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors propose a novel semiotic approach to the design of interactive systems and computational systems, grounded in the most recent contributions within the debate around semiotic theory and analysis. This approach, that is here called Semiotics of Configurations (SoC), is proposed for its analytic power in describing material artifacts and settings with a purposely a-conceptualistic stance. The resulting analysis informs a kind of design that is aimed at reproducing and supporting the programs of action detected in the use of artifacts, as this use is “abducted” from the physical and material form of the artifacts themselves and from the observation of how content is transformed within and across them. This approach to design, called immanent design, has inspired a platform for the user-driven development and use of electronic documents and forms in cooperative and organizational domains. The framework is illustrated with a case drawn from a study performed in the domain of hospital work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of microblog networks and the popularity of the friend circle, more and more users are linked together to form communities. The microblog community detection is not only the separation of following relationships. The interactive characteristic between users should also be considered. Therefore, in the article the maximum likelihood estimation is used to extract the interactive characteristics clustering. The Link Optimization Comm (LOC) algorithm based on density clustering is proposed to improve the performance the Link Comm (LC) algorithm. By integrating the interactive characteristic clustering into LOC algorithm, the high-performance IC-LOC method to detect potential communities is proposed. Then the complexity in clustering is analyzed. Simulation experiments show that LOC algorithm is better than LC algorithm in time complexity and normalized mutual information evaluation. Compared with LC algorithm in Sina microblog data sets, the IC-LOC method also achieves better performance of community detection. Moreover, the proposed method can effectively detect interactive and potential communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the wide application of digital tools and the improvement in interactive technologies, design thinking might change in digital world comparing to that in traditional design process. This study aims to explore the difference of design thinking between three kinds of sketching tools, i.e. hand-sketch, tablet, and pen-input display, by means of conducting 27 sessions of design trials. Totally, nine industrial design students as the participants were recruited to develop the concept sketches. Each participant has to undertake three sessions, and use one of the three kinds of sketching tool in one session for about 40 min. With a retrospective interview survey to all the participants followed by a protocol analysis to the transcriptions of the interview, a coding framework including six visual think behavior codes (i.e. transform, manipulate, concretize, abstract, modify and timescan) and four visual thinking strategy codes (thinking, feeling watching/listening, and other) were developed, and used to analyze the difference of occurrence frequency of the visual thinking behaviors and strategies. Furthermore, a one-way ANOVA and stepwise regression analysis were applied to inspect the correlation of behaviors and strategies of design visual thinking. The results show the different roles of sketching tools in affecting the occurrences frequency of various visual thinking behaviors and strategies, and the correlation between visual thinking strategies and behaviors. The conclusion was made by proposing the approach facilitating the design concept development in design education within digital world as well as the suggestion to future research work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The video traffic analysis is the most important issue for large scale surveillance. In the large scale surveillance system, huge amount of live digital video data is submitted to the storage servers through the number of externally connected scalable components. The system also contains huge amount of popular and unpopular old videos in the archived storage servers. The video data is delivered to the viewers, partly or completely on demand through a compact system. In real time, huge amount of video data is imported to the viewer's node for various analysis purposes. The viewers use a number of interactive operations during the real time tracking suspect. The compact video on demand system is used in peer to peer mesh type hybrid architecture. The chunk of video objects move fast through the real time generated compact topological space. Video traffic analytics is required to transfer compressed multimedia data efficiently. In this work, we present a dynamically developed topological space, using mixed strategy by game approach to move the video traffic faster. The simulation results are well addressed in real life scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise in popularity of touchscreens supports the need for improving the usability and accessibility of the technology for users with varying abilities. Touchscreen activation methods (tapping, take-off) can help address these issues but may have trade-offs (longer time to complete task). This study evaluated tapping and take-off touchscreen activation methods during a multi-item selection activity. Participants with ( n = 10) and without ( n = 10) motor control disabilities affecting upper extremity function (+MCD and −MCD, respectively) completed an experimental task to select four items from a list using either tapping or take-off activation with two different levels of mental effort (memorization vs. no memorization). Fewer errors (29 vs. 21 %, p = .018) but longer task completion times (14.3 vs. 9.04 s, p = .007) were observed for take-off vs. tapping. Error rate doubled for memorization compared to no memorization (33.5 vs. 16.5 %, p = .002). Both +MCD and −MCD groups had fewer errors using the take-off method, but tapping was preferred, had fewer misses and required less task completion time during a menu selection activity. For tablet touchscreen menu selection applications for individuals with and without upper extremity motor control disabilities, take-off activation method is more accurate than tapping though tapping is preferred, has fewer misses and requires less task completion time. Additional mental demand leads to an increase in the number of errors during touchscreen operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Static schedules for systems can lead to an inefficient usage of the resources, because the system's behavior cannot be adapted at runtime. To improve the runtime system performance in current time-triggered Multi-Processor System on Chip (MPSoC), a dynamic reaction to events is performed locally on the cores. The effects of this optimization can be increased by coordinating the changes globally. To perform such global changes, a consistent view on the system state is needed, on which to base the adaptation decisions. This paper proposes such an interactive consistency protocol with low impact on the system w.r.t. latency and overhead. We show that an energy optimizing adaptation controlled by the protocol can enable a system to save up to 43% compared to a system without adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to predict, through data mining tools, the incidence of perineal tear. This kind of laceration developed during child delivery might imply surgery and entails a set of several consequences. Clinical Decision Support Systems, with the information collected from patients’ electronic health records combined with the data mining techniques, may decrease the incidence of perineal tears during labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The communication data are becoming increasingly important for criminal network analysis nowadays, and these data provide a digital trace which can be regarded as a hidden clue to support the crack of criminal cases. Additionally, performing a timely and effective analysis on it can predict criminal intents and take efficient actions to restrain and prevent crimes. The primary work of our research is to suggest an analytical process with interactive strategies as a solution to the problem of characterizing criminal groups constructed from the communication data. It is expected to assist law enforcement agencies in the task of discovering the potential suspects and exploring the underlying structures of criminal network hidden behind the communication data. This process allows for network analysis with commonly used metrics to identify the core members. It permits exploration and visualization of the network in the goal of improving the comprehension of interesting microstructures. Most importantly, it also allows to extract community structures in an appropriate level with the label supervision strategy. Our work concludes illustrating the application of our interactive strategies to a real-world criminal investigation with mobile call logs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each individual’s usage behavior on mobile devices depends on a variety of factors, such as time, location, and previous actions. Hence, context-awareness provides great opportunities to make the networking and computing capabilities of mobile systems more personalized and more efficient in managing their resources. To this end, we first reveal new findings from our own Android user experiment: 1) the launching probabilities of applications follow Zipf’s law and 2) inter-running and running times of applications conform to log-normal distributions. We also find contextual dependencies between application usage patterns, for which we classify contexts autonomously with unsupervised learning methods. Using the knowledge acquired, we develop a context-aware application scheduling framework, context-aware application scheduler (CAS), that adaptively unloads and preloads background applications for a joint optimization in which the energy saving is maximized and the user discomfort from the scheduling is minimized. Our trace-driven simulations with 96 user traces demonstrate that the context-aware design of the CAS enables it to outperform existing process scheduling algorithms. Our implementation of the CAS over Android platforms and its end-to-end evaluations verify that its human-involved design indeed provides substantial user-experience gains in both energy and application launching latency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Design protocol analysis is a technique to understand designers’ cognitive processes by analyzing sequences of observations on their behavior. These observations typically use audio, video, and transcript data in order to gain insights into the designer's behavior and the design process. The recent availability of sophisticated sensing technology has made such data highly multimodal, requiring more flexible protocol analysis tools. To address this need, we present VizScribe, a visual analytics framework that employs multiple coordinated multiple views that enable the viewing of such data from different perspectives. VizScribe allows designers to create, customize, and extend interactive visualizations for design protocol data such as video, transcripts, sketches, sensor data, and user logs. User studies where design researchers used VizScribe for protocol analysis indicated that the linked views and interactive navigation offered by VizScribe afforded the researchers multiple, useful ways to approach and interpret such multimodal data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The timely and accurate mapping of dynamic disasters and emergencies is an important task that is necessary for supporting the decision-making that can improve the efficiency of rescue and response efforts. The existing emergency symbol libraries are primarily composed of point symbols and simple line symbols, focusing on the representation of disasters, related facilities, and operations. However, various existing response factors (e.g., the distribution and types of emergency forces) are also important for further decision-making and emergency responses; there is a need to design complex and diverse symbols to represent this rich information. Moreover, traditional mapping systems only provide static map symbols that cannot be easily edited after creation, making it difficult to support interactive editing after the symbols are mapped, thus hindering the representation of dynamic disasters and response factors. This article targets a solution of the above issues by proposing a procedural construction method of interactive map symbols for dynamic disasters and emergency responses. There are two primary research points. First, an emergency response and decision symbol library was classified and integrated into the existing attachments to form a richer symbol library for comprehensively representing disasters and emergencies. Second, an interactive map symbol procedural construction method was designed based on (1) primitive geometric compositions and geometric graphics algorithms to construct the map symbol graphics; (2) an interactive graphics control and drawing attributes configuration method to support user interactive editing of the visual variables of the mapped symbols; (3) and a dynamic updating and drawing strategy to support the real-time refreshing of the changing visual variables. The experiment was conducted using the Wenchuan earthquake as a case study, and the results demonstrate a powerful capacity of the produced interactive map symbols, which will contribute to the improvement of the mapping efficiency and representation capability of disasters and emergency response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactive Pattern Recognition (IPR) is an emergent framework in which the user is involved actively in the recognition process by giving feedback to the system when an error is detected. Although this framework is expected to reduce the number of errors to correct, it may increase the time required to complete the task since the machine needs to recompute its proposal after each interaction. Therefore, a fast computation is required to make the interactive system profitable and user-friendly. This work presents an efficient approach to deal with IPR tasks when data has a sequential nature. Our approach includes some computation at the very beginning of the task but it then achieves a linear complexity after user corrections. We also show how these tasks can be effectively carried out if the solution space is defined with a Regular Language. This fact has indeed proven to be the most relevant factor to improve the efficiency of the approach. Several experiments are carried out in which our proposal is faced against a classical search. Results show a reduction in time in all experiments considered, solving efficiently some complex IPR tasks thanks to our proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-component based Log-Structured Merge-tree (LSM-tree) has been becoming one of the mainstream indexes. LSM-tree adopts component-by-component KV item flowing down mechanism to push each KV item from one smaller component to the adjacent larger component during compaction procedures until the KV items reach the largest component. This process incurs significant write amplification and limits the write throughput. In this paper, we propose one multi-component Skip-tree to aggressively push the KV items to the non-adjacent larger components via skipping some components and then make the KV items’ top-down move more efficient. We develop adaptive and reliable KV item movements among components. By reducing the number of steps during the flowing process from memory-resident component to the disk-resident largest component, Skip-tree can effectively reduce the write amplification and thus improve the system throughput. We design and implement one high performance key-value store, named SkipStore, based on Skip-tree. The experiments demonstrate that SkipStore outperforms the state-of-the-art open-sourced system RocksDB in Facebook by 66.5 percent under HDD and 61 percent under SSD. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes an approach using taxonomic relatedness for answer-type recognition and type coercion in a question-answering system. We introduce a question analysis method for a lexical answer type (LAT) and semantic answer type (SAT) and describe the construction of a taxonomy linking them. We also analyze the effectiveness of type coercion based on the taxonomic relatedness of both ATs. Compared with the rule-based approach of IBM's Watson, our LAT detector, which combines rule-based and machine-learning approaches, achieves an 11.04% recall improvement without a sharp decline in precision. Our SAT classifier with a relatedness-based validation method achieves a precision of 73.55%. For type coercion using the taxonomic relatedness between both ATs and answer candidates, we construct an answer-type taxonomy that has a semantic relationship between the two ATs. In this paper, we introduce how to link heterogeneous lexical knowledge bases. We propose three strategies for type coercion based on the relatedness between the two ATs and answer candidates in this taxonomy. Finally, we demonstrate that this combination of individual type coercion creates a synergistic effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animation techniques for controlling liquid simulation are challenging: they commonly require carefully setting initial and boundary conditions or performing a costly numerical optimization scheme against user-provided keyframes or animation sequences. Either way, the whole process is laborious and computationally expensive. We introduce a novel method to provide intuitive and interactive control of liquid simulation. Our method enables a user to locally edit selected keyframes and automatically propagates the editing in a nearby temporal region using geometric deformation. We formulate our local editing techniques as a small-scale nonlinear optimization problem which can be solved interactively. With this uniformed formulation, we propose three editing metaphors, including (i) sketching local fluid features using a few user strokes, (ii) dragging a local fluid region, and (iii) controlling a local shape with a small mesh patch. Finally, we use the edited liquid animation to guide an offline high-resolution simulation to recover more surface details. We demonstrate the intuitiveness and efficacy of our method in various practical scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree rings (growthing) analysis provides useful information about the age of a tree and the past climatic conditions. Analysis of tree rings manually is a herculean task and requires a domain area expert. The present work proposes a soft technique to analyse tree rings. Effective canny edge detection approach was utilized to process high-quality digital images of tree rings. The developed program successfully performs interactive tree-ring image analysis with MATLAB Image Processing Toolbox. It generates information about the width of earlywood and latewood of the growth ring. The information generated may be further utilized by domain area expert to deduce the age of a tree. The development of such a system will ease the human analysis efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent years, we are increasingly endowing devices and machines with the abilities to “sense”, “understand”, and “interact” with us and the physical world, aided by the rapid advances in natural sensing and perceptual computing technologies. In this article, we describe a new class of intelligent systems and immersive applications based on real-time 3D sensing, including interactive computing devices, autonomous robots and drones, as well as augmented and virtual reality systems, blurring the border between the real and the virtual words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Errors in judgment during laparoscopic cholecystectomy can lead to bile duct injuries and other complications. Despite correlations between outcomes, expertise and advanced cognitive skills, current methods to evaluate these skills remain subjective, rater- and situation-dependent and non-systematic. The purpose of this study was to develop objective metrics using a Web-based platform and to obtain validity evidence for their assessment of decision-making during laparoscopic cholecystectomy.Methods: An interactive online learning platform was developed ( www.thinklikeasurgeon.com ). Trainees and surgeons from six institutions completed a 12-item assessment, developed based on a cognitive task analysis. Five items required subjects to draw their answer on the surgical field, and accuracy scores were calculated based on an algorithm derived from experts' responses ("visual concordance test", VCT). Test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and correlation with self-reported experience, Global Operative Assessment of Laparoscopic Skills (GOALS) score and Objective Performance Rating Scale (OPRS) score were calculated. Questionnaires were administered to evaluate the platform's usability, feasibility and educational value.Results: Thirty-nine subjects (17 surgeons, 22 trainees) participated. There was high test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.95; n = 10) and internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.87). The assessment demonstrated significant differences between novices, intermediates and experts in total score (p < 0.01) and VCT score (p < 0.01). There was high correlation between total case number and total score (ρ = 0.83, p < 0.01) and between total case number and VCT (ρ = 0.82, p < 0.01), and moderate to high correlations between total score and GOALS (ρ = 0.66, p = 0.05), VCT and GOALS (ρ = 0.83, p < 0.01), total score and OPRS (ρ = 0.67, p = 0.04), and VCT and OPRS (ρ = 0.78, p = 0.01). Most subjects agreed or strongly agreed that the platform and assessment was easy to use [n = 29 (78 %)], facilitates learning intra-operative decision-making [n = 28 (81 %)], and should be integrated into surgical training [n = 28 (76 %)].Conclusion: This study provides preliminary validity evidence for a novel interactive platform to objectively assess decision-making during laparoscopic cholecystectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

spat-sceneis a graphical user interface and spatial sound processor embedded in computer-aided composition software. It combines the interface and the rendering engine of IrcamSpatialisateurwith a compositional and temporal control of spatial scene descriptors. Previous studies of the composition process as well as interviews with composers emphasized the needs for tools integrated within compositional environments allowing for interactive input, visualization and manipulation of spatio-temporal data in spatial scene descriptions. Thespat-sceneinterface addresses such requirements by providing a timeline view synchronized with the spatial view of theSpatialisateur, three-dimensional editors as well as several internal and external rendering possibilities, all in a unified framework.spat-sceneis implemented in the OpenMusic visual programming language, and so can be articulated with other musical structures and compositional processes. Through the case study of sound spatialization, this work tackles the challenge of authoring real-time processes in a compositional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary multi-objective optimization (EMO) methodologies have been widely applied to find a well-distributed trade-off solutions approximating to the Pareto-optimal front in the past decades. However, integrating the user-preference into the optimization to find the region of interest (ROI) [1] or preferred Pareto-optimal solutions could be more efficient and effective for the decision maker (DM) straightforwardly. In this paper, we propose several methods by combining preference-based strategy (like the reference points) with the decomposition-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA/D) [2] , and demonstrate how preferred sets or ROIs near the different reference points specified by the DM can be found simultaneously and interactively. The study is based on the experiments conducted on a set of test problems with objectives ranging from two to fifteen objectives. Experiments have proved that the proposed approaches are more efficient and effective especially on many-objective problems to provide a set of solutions to the DM's preference, so that a better and a more reliable decision can be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Recent literature proposes that repeated checking increases familiarity with the material, making recollections less vivid and detailed and promoting distrust in memory. The aim of the current study is to investigate the possible underlying mechanisms of low confidence in memory. Method: The Padua Inventory-Washington State University Revision (PI-WSUR) was applied in a cohort of university students. Among the students who completed the PI-WSUR, 84 participants were selected and assigned to low Obsessive-Compulsive Symptomatology (OCS) group or high OCS group according to their PI-WSUR scores. An interactive computer animation was developed to test repeated checking behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions: "Feedback condition" and "no feedback condition". The participants were all asked to carry out checking rituals on a virtual gas ring. However, half of the participants were given feedback indicating that checking activity was successful and complete and half of the participants were not. Results: While there was no significant difference in terms of memory accuracy, memory detail and memory vividness between feedback condition and no feedback condition, there was a significant difference in terms of memory confidence between two experimental groups. Discussion: Results are discussed in the light of a different explanation offering that the level of distinctiveness of recollections plays crucial role in memory distrust rather than the explanation of low confidence hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of digital technologies is shifting the definition of dance, performance, and art creating a space to investigate movement-based thinking. This space has facilitated the creation of The Movement Booth, a "human data network" installation designed by Eleanor Chownsmith. Technological influences on dance are explored in this paper, together with the return of the post-modern ideal of the ordinary becoming art. Our understanding of the ordinary is shifting, however, as we become progressively absorbed into digital culture. The resulting art works blend human movement and advanced technology, presenting a trans-disciplinary approach to choreography. These works question how we can successfully utilise new technologies at the risk of sacrificing the physical and expressive qualities of dance. This paper discusses ways dance practitioners are harnessing this approach to dance making and the role of the performer or participant as co-creator in an interactive art environment. These topics are discussed through analysing the operation and influences of The Movement Booth. The booth generates a flow of movement that passes through its participants, a process designed to be analogous to the speed and spread of information transmission in the digital age; this analogy is reinforced by the booth's use of interactive technologies: Arduino Uno and visual coding language Max/MSP/Jitter. The finished installation represented human absorption into digital culture, as well as functioning as a choreographic tool for developing movement and recycling previous dance material. The recordings collected from the booth made it possible to map the strength of individual movements and connect these findings to the infectious nature of ideas in online social networks. With this in mind, interdisciplinary dance works that utilise technology seem to be an evolving tool for reflecting not only on who we are right now but also our questions about what the future holds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactive Typography is a process where a user communicates by interacting with text and a moving factor. This research covers interactive typography using real-time response to a user's gesture. In order to form a language-independent system, preprocessing of entered text data presents image data. This preprocessing is followed by recognizing the image data and the setting interaction points. This is done using computer vision technology such as the Harris corner detector and contour detection. User interaction is achieved using skeleton information tracked by a depth camera. By synchronizing the user's skeleton information acquired by Kinect (a depth camera,) and the typography components (interaction points), all user gestures are linked with the typography in real time. An experiment was conducted, in both English and Korean, where users showed an 81% satisfaction level using an interactive typography system where text components showed discrete movements in accordance with the users' gestures. Through this experiment, it was possible to ascertain that sensibility varied depending on the size and the speed of the text and interactive alteration. The results show that interactive typography can potentially be an accurate communication tool, and not merely a uniform text transmission system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of an experiment that investigated the effects of stereoscopic 3D viewing on knowledge retention with respect to a spatial interactive task within a serious game that was designed for fire safety training. Participants were trained to identify the safe distance to remain from a (virtual) fire in both stereoscopic 3D and non-stereoscopic 3D contexts. After a 24 h period, they were then tested to determine whether they retained the information that they were taught. Contrary to prior work that suggests stereoscopic 3D has an impact on knowledge retention, our results indicate no significant difference between knowledge retention in a stereoscopic 3D versus a non-stereoscopic 3D interactive environment. Although greater work remains to be done and no firm conclusions can be made regarding the use of stereoscopic 3D, our results have shown that stereoscopic 3D does not always lead to greater performance. Our results have implications for designers of serious games; the discussion and decision to use stereoscopic 3D should be incorporated early in the design phase and there should be some consideration placed on individualized calibration of stereoscopic 3D settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional hearing aid fitting method, which mainly relies on the audiologist, is time-consuming and messy. To improve this situation, a self-fitting algorithm based on an improved interactive evolutionary computation (IEC) algorithm and expert system, which enables the patients to fit the hearing aid by themselves, is proposed. The algorithm takes the band gain as the fitting target and uses the patient's subjective evaluation to iteratively update the algorithm parameters based on the improved IEC algorithm. In addition, a real-time updated expert system is constructed to assist in the optimization of the initial and iterative parameters of the fitting based on the patient's audiogram and personal information. To verify the performance of the algorithm, a self-fitting software for the hearing aid is designed. Through this software, the test signal is generated for the patient to evaluate the audio quality on a five-level scale. Based on the evaluation results, the algorithm iteratively optimizes the algorithm parameters until the patient is satisfied with the generated audio. Compared with the fitting algorithm based on Gaussian processes algorithm or the interactive evolutionary algorithm, the average subjective speech recognition rate of the proposed algorithm increase at least 11%. The average recognition rate for environmental sound is also improved by at least 2.9%. In addition, the fitting time of the proposed algorithm is shortened by at least 10 min compared to others two algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactive technology for dogs is on the rise with there now being a whole TV channel supplying videos for dogs as well as several examples of interactive technology designed for the purpose of ‘entertaining’ dogs and other pet mammals. The Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) research field has moved into the study of such technologies having earlier focussed mainly on technologies for working animals where there are two main stakeholders, the dogs and the humans, and where there is an expectation often, that the dog is doing a certain task. In studies of what might be referred to as entertainment interaction, there is a need to understand what, if anything, attracts a dog's attention whilst being mindful that where the only real stakeholder is the dog, there may be some methodological considerations in regards to the level of control and the level of autonomy given to the dog in such studies. This paper presents a study of dogs’ attention between three screens to explore the movement of attention between screens, and between videos in a relatively uncontrolled research environment. The study demonstrates that the method used, which was to be as ‘dog-centred’ as possible, yielded useful data. For the design community it is shown that the dogs were seen to attend mainly to a favoured screen (left and centre in this case) and three of the videos appeared to be preferred over the others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate social dimensions of technology use in human–animal interactions, through a study of interactive systems at the zoo. Zoos are a familiar place for encounters between humans and non-domesticated animals. Accordingly, we examine zoos as a significant site to extend research into animal–computer interaction (ACI). We present a case study that examines the deployment and use of new digital technologies that intervene in, and influence, human–animal relationships. The paper reports on interactive systems in use at Melbourne Zoo. The study investigates the use and impact of technology in the course of human–animal encounters, including how human use of technology in this setting shapes encounters in subtle ways. We examine five interactive systems used by visitors ( Digital Signs and the Zoopermarket ), by zoo personnel with visitors ( Educator Screens and Volunteer iPads ), and by zoo personnel with animals ( Apps for Apes ). Our work draws broad insights for the design and understanding of animal–human–computer interaction at the zoo, as a catalyst for further research into this site of considerable significance to animal-computer interaction. We identified four key themes in the ways that interactive systems are intervening in human–animal encounters at the zoo. Firstly, interactive technology at the zoo risks distracting from visitors' encounters with animals. Secondly, the appearance and use of technology moreover runs counter to expectations of naturalistic zoo landscapes. Thirdly, interactive systems however offer opportunities to enhance important aspects of visitors' experience of animal encounters, and to widen the temporal and spatial dimensions of the encounter. Finally, we interpret these insights by examining how technology is used in the context of interactions between numerous human and animal actors, and in a setting impacted by complex social and organisational forces. From this, we identify the need for ACI to consider technology use by diverse people and animals; that multiple interactions may occur at once; the diverse social activities that may surround human–animal interactions; the distributed form of interactions between multiple participants; and the performative nature of some human–animal encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance of interactive graphics walkthrough systems depends on the time taken to fetch the required data from the secondary storage to main memory. It has been earlier established that a large fraction of this fetch time is spent on seeking the data on the hard disk. In order to reduce this seek time, redundant data storage has been proposed in the literature, but the redundancy factors of those layouts are prohibitively high. In this paper, we develop a cost model for the seek time of a layout. Based on this cost model, we propose an elegant algorithm that computes a redundant data layout with the redundancy factor that is within the user-specified bounds, while maximizing the performance of the system. By using a set of training access requirements and a set of validation access requirements, our proposed method is able to automatically maximize system performance with an optimal redundancy factor. Experimental results show that the interactive rendering speed of the walkthrough system was improved by a factor of 2-4 by using our data layout method when compared to existing methods with or without redundancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, many studies have examined the potential benefits of educational virtual environments (EVEs), either by comparing them with other media or by assessing the effects of their features on learning. Paradoxically, very few of them have explored the effects of stereoscopic versus nonstereoscopic displays on learning and/or the subjective experience provided in an EVE. Our study was designed to fill this gap, by comparing the effects of these two virtual reality modes in an interactive mechanics learning task. We collected measures of task effectiveness (success/failure and completion time), learning outcomes and subjective experience (user experience, flow, and immersion). Results showed that (1) users were more successful in the learning tasks in the stereoscopic condition, and (2) perceived affective quality, flow, and immersion were better in this condition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the past decade, there has been increasing interest in studying tabletop technologies in HCI. Using the Gartners Hype Cycle as an analytical framework, this article presents developments in tabletop research within the last decade. The objective is to determine the level of maturity of tabletop technologies with respect to the research foci and the extent to which tabletops have shown their worth in real world settings. We identify less studied topics in the current body of literature with the primary aim of evoking further discussions of the current and future research challenges. We analyzed 542 research publications and categorized these according to eight types of research foci. Findings show that only 3% of all studies are conducted in natural settings, i.e. there is a clear tendency to emphasize laboratory evaluations of tabletop technology. Also, very few studies demonstrate relative benefits of tabletops over other technologies in collaborative settings (1%). We argue for a need to increase emphasis on understanding real-world use and impact rather than developing new tabletop technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Distributed interactive computing allows participants at different locations to interact with each other in real time. In this paper, we study the interaction times of continuous Distributed Interactive Applications (DIAs) in which the application states change due to not only user-initiated operations but also time passing. Given the clients and servers of a continuous DIA, its interaction time is directly affected by how the clients are assigned to the servers as well as the simulation time settings of the servers. We formulate the Minimum Interaction Time (MIT) problem as a combinatorial problem of these two tuning knobs and prove that it is NP-hard. We then approximate the problem by fixing the client assignment or the simulation time offsets among the servers. When the client assignment is fixed, we show that finding the minimum achievable interaction time can be reduced to a weighted bipartite matching problem. We further show that this approach establishes a tight approximation factor of 3 to the MIT problem if each client is assigned to its nearest server. When the simulation time offsets among the servers are fixed, we show that finding the minimum achievable interaction time is still NP-hard. This approach can approximate the MIT problem by a factor within 2 if the simulation times of all servers are synchronized. A mix of the above two approaches better approximates the MIT problem within a factor of 5/3. We further conduct experimental evaluation of these approaches with three real Internet latency datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we show the potential of machine learning regarding the task of underwater source localization through a fluctuating ocean. Underwater source localization is classically addressed under the angle of inversion techniques. However, because an inversion scheme is necessarily based on the knowledge of the environmental parameters, it may be not well adapted to a random and fluctuating underwater channel. Conversely, machine learning only requires using a training database, the environmental characteristics underlying the regression models. This makes machine learning adapted to fluctuating channels. In this paper, we propose to use non linear regressions for source localization in fluctuating oceans. The kernel regression as well as the local linear regression are compared to typical inversion techniques, namely Matched Field Beamforming and the algorithm MUSIC. Our experiments use both real tank-based and simulated data, introduced in the works of Real et al. Based on Monte Carlo iterations, we show that the machine learning approaches may outperform the inversion techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Use cases (UC) have traditionally been applied by software development teams as a technical and administrative tool. From each of these perspectives, it is necessary to have a set of attributes to manage, because the information taken for the development of a software product contains information from both the system and the organization. If all this information is intended to be captured through the uc, probably what results is a significant increase in the complexity of its specification, which creates some level of confusion when using them. In this paper we propose the separation of business and technical elements, when drafting uc, using the ATx. We are introducing the ATx in modeling with uc to reduce its complexity and mainly to increase their effectiveness and usefulness in what has to do with the human computer interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interactive visualization system can support volumetric data exploration in airport security screenings by addressing the challenges unique to the baggage inspection. The proposed system includes a set of interaction techniques that combine the direct manipulation of voxels and their interactive visualization. The system's final tools and GUI design incorporate feedback from airport personnel and were validated by real-world users in terms of effectiveness and ease of use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sampling is becoming an essential tool for scalable interactive visual analysis. After outlining prior work by the database community on sampling for visualization of aggregation queries, this article considers how these results might be improved and extended to a broader setting. The goal is to better understand how users interact with sampling to enable wider adoption of sampling for scalable visual analytics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]