Supporting the design of mobile interactive artefacts

Current paper-based activities and practices are highly disseminated and intrinsic to our daily lives. Particular cases such as therapeutic and educational procedures, which rely strongly on paper-based artefacts (e.g., questionnaires, forms, manuals) assume special importance due to their critical content. However, their passiveness, limited interactivity, lack of adjustment, among other problems tend to obstruct personalization, hindering efficiency and limiting some users while achieving desired goals. This paper presents an environment that supports an easy and flexible design of tailored digital artefacts for mobile devices. The artefacts can be adjusted to the users’ needs, providing support to various purposes by coping with and enhancing different procedures. The environment integrates a set of configurable domain oriented guidelines that aid end-users through the creation of their personalized artefacts. It has been validated through three case studies by providing support to mobile learning, personal training and by offering means to achieve ubiquitous cognitive behavioural therapy.     

Integrating Physical and Digital Interactions on Walls for Fluid Design Collaboration

ABSTRACT

Web designers use pens, paper, walls, and tables for explaining, developing, and communicating ideas during the early phases of design. These practices inspired The Designers' Outpost. With Outpost, users collaboratively author Web site information architectures on an electronic whiteboard using physical media (sticky notes and images), structuring and annotating that information with electronic pens. This interaction is enabled by a touch-sensitive electronic whiteboard augmented with a computer vision system. The Designers' Outpost integrates wall-scale, paper-based design practices with novel electronic tools to better support collaboration during early-phase design. Our studies with professional designers showed this integration to be especially helpful for fluidly transitioning to other design tools, access and exploration of design history, and remote collaboration.     

Wiki-supported collaborative learning in primary education: How a dialogic space is created for thinking together

This paper explores how wikis may be used to support primary education students’ collaborative interaction and how such an interaction process can be characterised. The overall aim of this study is to analyse the collaborative processes of students working together in a wiki environment, in order to see how primary students can actively create a shared context for learning in the wiki. Educational literature has already reported that wikis may support collaborative knowledge-construction processes, but in our study we claim that a dialogic perspective is needed to accomplish this. Students must develop an intersubjective orientation towards each others’ perspectives, to co-construct knowledge about a topic. For this purpose, our project utilised a ‘Thinking Together’ approach to help students develop an intersubjective orientation towards one another and to support the creation of a ‘dialogic space’ to co-construct new understanding in a wiki science project. The students’ asynchronous interaction process in a primary classroom—which led to the creation of a science text in the wiki—was analysed and characterised, using a dialogic approach to the study of CSCL practices. Our results illustrate how the Thinking Together approach became embedded within the wiki environment and in the students’ collaborative processes. We argue that a dialogic approach for examining interaction can be used to help design more effective pedagogic approaches related to the use of wikis in education and to equip learners with the competences they need to participate in the global knowledge-construction era.     

An Ontology for G2G Collaboration in Public Policy Making,Implementation and Evaluation

This paper concerns the development and use of ontologies for electronically supporting and structuring the highest-level function of government: the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies for the big and complex problems that modern societies face. This critical government function usually necessitates extensive interaction and collaboration among many heterogeneous government organizations (G2G collaboration) with different backgrounds, mentalities, values, interests and expectations, so it can greatly benefit from the use of ontologies. In this direction initially an ontology of public policy making, implementation and evaluation is described, which has been developed as part of the project ICTE-PAN of the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme of the European Commission, based on sound theoretical foundations mainly from the public policy analysis domain and contributions of experts from the public administrations of four European Union countries (Denmark, Germany, Greece and Italy). It is a ‘horizontal’ ontology that can be used for electronically supporting and structuring the whole lifecycle of a public policy in any vertical (thematic) area of government activity; it can also be combined with ‘vertical’ ontologies of the specific vertical (thematic) area of government activity we are dealing with. In this paper is also described the use of this ontology for electronically supporting and structuring the collaborative public policy making, implementation and evaluation through ‘structured electronic forums’, ‘extended workflows’, ‘public policy stages with specific sub-ontologies’, etc., and also for the semantic annotation, organization, indexing and integration of the contributions of the participants of these forums, which enable the development of advanced semantic web capabilities in this area.     

Transport in two-dimensional paper networks

Two-dimensional paper networks (2DPNs) hold great potential for transcending the capabilities and performance of today’s paper-based analytical devices. Specifically, 2DPNs enable sophisticated multi-step chemical processing sequences for sample pretreatment and analysis at a cost and ease-of-use that make them appropriate for use in settings with low resources. A quantitative understanding of flow in paper networks is essential to realize the potential of these networks. In this report, we provide a framework for understanding flow in simple 2DPNs using experiments, analytical expressions, and computational simulations.     

Improved perspective visibility ordering for object-order volume rendering

Finding a correct a priori back-to-front (BTF) visibility ordering for the perspective projection of the voxels of a rectangular volume poses interesting problems. The BTF ordering presented by Frieder et al. [6] and the permuted BTF presented by Westover [14] are correct for parallel projection but not for perspective projection [12]. Swan presented a constructive proof for the correctness of the perspective BTF (PBTF) ordering [12]. This was a significant improvement on the existing orderings. However, his proof assumes that voxel projections are not larger than a pixel, i.e. voxel projections do not overlap in screen space. Very often the voxel projections do overlap, e.g. with splatting algorithms. In these cases, the PBTF ordering results in highly visible and characteristic rendering artefacts. In this paper we analyse the PBTF and show why it yields these rendering artefacts. We then present an improved visibility ordering that remedies the artefacts. Our new ordering is as good as the PBTF, but it is also valid for cases where voxel projections are larger than a single pixel, i.e. when voxel projections overlap in screen space. We demonstrate why and how our ordering works at fundamental and implementation levels.     

Infrastructuring in Healthcare through the OpenEHR Architecture

In Norway, a national initiative is currently aiming at standardising the electronic patient record (EPR) content based on an openEHR framework. The openEHR architecture, offers users the capability to conduct standardisation and structuration of the EPR content in a distributed manner, through an internet-based tool. Systems based on this architecture, is expected to ensure universal (also internationally) interoperability among all forms of electronic data. A crude estimate is that it is necessary to define somewhere between 1000 and 2000 standardised elements or clinical concepts (so-called archetypes), to constitute a functioning EPR system. Altogether, the collection of defined archetypes constitutes a backbone of an interoperable EPR system lending on the openEHR architecture. We conceptualize the agreed-upon archetypes as a large-scale information infrastructure, and the process of developing the archetypes as a infrastructuring effort. With this as a backdrop, we focus on the following research question: What are the challenges of infrastructuring in a large-scale user-driven standardisation process in healthcare? This question is operationalized into three sub-questions: First, how are the openEHR-based archetypes standardised in practice? Second, what is the role of daily clinical practice, and existing systems in the process of developing archetypes? Third, how may related, but supposedly independent infrastructuring projects shape each other’s progress? We contribute with insight into how power relations and politics shape the infrastructuring process. Empirically, we have studied the formative process of establishing a national information infrastructure based on the openEHR approach in the period 2012–2016 in Norway.     

Tying Knots: Participatory Infrastructuring at Work

Today, most design projects are infrastructuring projects, because they build on technologies, competencies and practices that already exist. While infrastructuring was originally seen as being full of conflicts and contradictions with what is already present, we find that many contemporary reports seem to mainly address participatory infrastructuring as horizontal co-design and local, mutual learning processes in which people attempt to make the most out of available technology. In this paper we expand our view of design activities in three dimensions: First, how participatory processes play out vertically in different political and practical arenas; second, on the back stage of design, the messy activities that occur before, between and after the participatory workshops. And third, on their reach; how they tie into existing networks across organizations, and how agency and initiatives become dispersed within these networks. To illustrate and discuss the process of participatory infrastructuring we use a case study from an educational context. This particular project contains a diverse set of design activities at many organizational levels revolving around technology, decision-making, competence-building, commitment and policy-making. The project highlights these complexities, and our discussions lead to a vocabulary for participatory infrastructuring that focuses on knotworking, rather than structure, and on both horizontal and vertical reach and sustainability. This vocabulary is grounded in the meeting of the literature on infrastructuring, participatory design, and activity theory, and leads to a revised understanding of, for example, learning and conflicts in participatory infrastructuring.     

Analysis and Classification of Human Driving Behaviour in an Urban Environment*

Intelligent vehicle systems have introduced the need for designers to consider user preferences so as to make several kinds of driving features as driver friendly as possible. This requirement raises the problem of how to suitably analyse human performance so they can be implemented in automatic driving tasks. The framework of the present work is an adaptive cruise control with stop and go features for use in an urban setting. In such a context, one of the main requirements is to be able to tune the control strategy to the driver’s style. In order to do this, a number of different drivers were studied through the statistical analysis of their behaviour while driving. The aim of this analysis is to decide whether it is possible to determine a driver’s behaviour, what signals are suitable for this task and which parameters can be used to describe a driver’s style. An assignment procedure is then introduced in order to classify a driver’s behaviour within the stop and go task being considered. Finally, the findings were analysed subjectively and compared with a statistically objective one.     

Paper remote: an augmented television guide and remote control

The television (TV) is one of the most common entertainment devices in homes. Searching and finding TV programs is a common task and using TV guides is one way of performing this. This paper presents three studies that are focused on examining audiences’ TV habits and TV guide usage, evaluating a new concept based on linking paper and pen with TV technology, and studying the audiences’ attitudes toward and anticipated interest in the future guide. The results of our first study emphasize the value of using paper based TV guides and also identify the deficiencies. We also found indications that the advantages and disadvantages of paper-based TV guides are related to the physical properties of paper. Thus, we suggest a solution that uses digital pen and paper technology to offer a new interaction method for TV. A research system “Paper Remote”, is developed and used in the two subsequent studies. Viewers tick designated areas on the paper-based guide to perform actions such as channel switching. However, this solution is not a substitute for the remote control device. We argue that these user studies on linking digital paper to the TV for everyday information navigation illuminate the possibilities of providing innovative solutions also for home information systems also.     

Combining case-based reasoning systems and support vector regression to evaluate the atmosphere–ocean interaction

This work presents a system for automatically evaluating the interaction that exists between the atmosphere and the ocean’s surface. Monitoring and evaluating the ocean’s carbon exchange process is a function that requires working with a great amount of data: satellite images and in situ vessel’s data. The system presented in this study focuses on computational intelligence. The study presents an intelligent system based on the use of case-based reasoning (CBR) systems and offers a distributed model for such an interaction. Moreover, the system takes into account the fact that the working environment is dynamic and therefore it requires autonomous models that evolve over time. In order to resolve this problem, an intelligent environment has been developed, based on the use of CBR systems, which are capable of handling several goals, by constructing plans from the data obtained through satellite images and research vessels, acquiring knowledge and adapting to environmental changes. The artificial intelligence system has been successfully tested in the North Atlantic Ocean, and the results obtained will be presented in this study.     

Measuring Lisbon Patterns: Baixa from 1650 to 2010

The present study, based on a comparative analysis of several plans for Lisbon’s Baixa district, with an emphasis on that area’s public space, contributes to an understanding of the urban design process and presents a fresh perspective on dealing with historical data by conducting a posteriori analysis using mathematical tools to uncover relations in the historical data. The nine plans used were quantified and evaluated in a comparative manner. While CAD was used to quantify the urban morphology of the different plans, comparative tables make it possible to register the data, which was further evaluated through two interrelated processes: mathematical analysis and the urban analysis. The results show the existence of power law relations for the areas of each of the city’s different elements (e.g., blocks, churches, largos and adros). We discuss how this contributes to the understanding of the plans’ elements.     

Electronic Instruction at Carlson Library

Abstract

In this age of increasing electronic instruction in academic libraries, the University of Toledo's Carlson Library, like many other academic libraries, is trying to come of age. The library's instruction program has traditionally used a paper-based instructional format. However, with the introduction of the library's OPAC, CD-ROMs, the Internet, and OhioLINK in recent years, we are faced with a number of challenges which this paper will discuss. The main challenge is that we are trying to teach electronic resources without a mediated classroom in the library. We need to bridge the gap between the paper-based instruction program and electronic resources because our current teaching methods do not always allow for patron interaction with the technology. Increasingly, instruction is having to take place at the Information Desk, where there are time constraints and library users are unclear about the kinds of information they want or which electronic resources they need. Adapting to these new and growing resources and developing the skills needed to teach them are among the important challenges librarians at Carlson Library face.     

Socio-ethics of interaction with intelligent interactive technologies

Socio-ethics covers the relation of the individual with the group and with society, as the individual acquires the skills for social life with others and the conduct of ‘normal responsible behaviour’ (Leal in AI Soc 9:29–32, 1995) that guides moral action. For a consideration of what it means to be socially skilled in everyday human interaction and the ethical issues arising from the new conditions of interaction that come with the integration of intelligent interactive artefacts, we will provide an analysis at multiple levels of these phenomena and draw on a variety of application domains, for example, healthcare and interactive media.     

Model-checking user behaviour using interacting components

This article describes a framework to formally model and analyse human behaviour. This is shown by a simple case study of a chocolate vending machine, which represents many aspects of human behaviour. The case study is modelled and analysed using the Maude rewrite system. This work extends a previous work by Basuki which attempts to model interactions between human and machine and analyse the possibility of errors occurring in the interactions. By redesigning the interface, it can be shown that certain kinds of error can be avoided for some users. This article overcomes the limitation of Basuki’s approach by incorporating many aspects of user behaviour into a single user model, and introduces a more natural approach to model human–computer interaction.     

Mapping strategy for web-driven magazines with personalized advertisement and content

“There will always (I hope) be print books, but just as the advent of photography changed the role of painting or film changed the role of theater in our culture, electronic publishing is changing the world of print media. To look for a one-to-one transposition to the new medium is to miss the future until it has passed you by.”—Tim O’Reilly (2002). It is not hard to envisage that publishers will leverage subscribers’ information, interest groups’ shared knowledge and others sources to enhance their publications. While this enhances the value of the publication through more accurate and personalized content, it also brings a new set of challenges to the publisher. Content is now driven by web and in a truly automated system, that is, no designer “re-touch” intervention is envisaged. This paper introduces an exploratory mapping strategy to allocate web driven content in a highly graphical publication like a traditional magazine. Two major aspects of the mapping are covered, those enable different level of flexibility and address different content flowing strategies. The last contribution is an evaluation of existing standards, which potentially can leverage this work to incorporate flexible mapping, and subsequently, composition capabilities. The work published here is an extended version of the article presented at the Eight ACM Symposium on Document Engineering in fall 2008 (Giannetti 2008).     

Mediacups: experience with design and use of computer-augmented everyday artefacts

Our view of ubiquitous computing is artefact-centred: in this view, computers are considered as secondary artefacts that enable items of everyday use to communicate as networked digital artefacts. This view is expressed in an artefact computing model and investigated in the Mediacup project, an evolving artefact computing environment. The Mediacup project provides insights into the augmentation of artefacts with sensing, processing, and communication capabilities, and into the provision of an open infrastructure for information exchange among artefacts. One of the artefacts studied is the Mediacup itself, an ordinary coffee cup invisibly augmented with computing and context-awareness. The Mediacup and other computer-augmented everyday artefacts are connected through a network infrastructure supporting loosely coupled spatially defined communication.     

A knowledge-practice perspective on technology-mediated learning

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the relations between Carl Bereiter’s and Marlene Scardamalia’s knowledge-building approach and social practices. It is argued that technology enhances learning through transformed social practices. In order to truly contribute to educational transformation, pedagogical approaches have to be embedded in locally cultivated “knowledge practices” that channel the participants’ intellectual efforts in a way that elicits collective advancement of knowledge. Consequently, knowledge advancement is not just about putting students’ ideas into the centre but depends on corresponding transformation of social practices of working with knowledge. Creation of cultures which advance knowledge presupposes sustained efforts of teacher-practitioners, collaborating with students and researchers, aimed at iteratively transforming prevailing knowledge practices toward more innovative ones.     

Materials with computational experience and style

This paper discusses the design of materials that utilize embedded computational techniques to demonstrate the capacity to learn, adapt and develop responsive behaviors that are shaped over time. The focus is on materials that develop time-based relationships based on a level of ‘experience’ they accumulate from long-term interaction with their users and environment. Materials with ‘computational experience’ are demonstrated with two designs: an interactive rocking chair that utilizes its material properties and computational abilities to manage its own energy production and consumption while providing physical and mental exercises to its user; and an LED-based, reconfigurable display that adjusts its content based on its interaction with its user while monitoring its internal conditions, environmental factors and usage. These examples are used to discuss the design of computational ‘styles’ for materials that would not only allow them to express signature characteristics embedded in their physical properties and computational behavior but also function as features that would evolve in response to interaction patterns and accumulated experiences. Throughout the paper, behavior-driven material practices are presented and their potential to influence the look, feel and functionalities of products and spaces are discussed.