Estimación eficiente de atributos demográficos del rostro humano en imágenes

Sin duda, el rostro humano ofrece mucha más información de la que pensamos. La cara transmite sin nuestro consentimiento señales no verbales, a partir de las interacciones faciales, que dejan al descubierto nuestro estado afectivo, actividad cognitiva, personalidad y enfermedades. Estudios recientes [OFT14, TODMS15] demuestran que muchas de nuestras decisiones sociales e interpersonales derivan de un previo análisis facial de la cara que nos permite establecer si esa persona es confiable, trabajadora, inteligente, etc. Esta interpretación, propensa a errores, deriva de la capacidad innata de los seres humanas de encontrar estas señales e interpretarlas. Esta capacidad es motivo de estudio, con un especial interés en desarrollar métodos que tengan la habilidad de calcular de manera automática estas señales o atributos asociados a la cara. Así, el interés por la estimación de atributos faciales ha crecido rápidamente en los últimos años por las diversas aplicaciones en que estos métodos pueden ser utilizados: marketing dirigido, sistemas de seguridad, interacción hombre-máquina, etc. Sin embargo, éstos están lejos de ser perfectos y robustos en cualquier dominio de problemas. La principal dificultad encontrada es causada por la alta variabilidad intra-clase debida a los cambios en la condición de la imagen: cambios de iluminación, oclusiones, expresiones faciales, edad, género, etnia, etc.; encontradas frecuentemente en imágenes adquiridas en entornos no controlados. Este de trabajo de investigación estudia técnicas de análisis de imágenes para estimar atributos faciales como el género, la edad y la postura, empleando métodos lineales y explotando las dependencias estadísticas entre estos atributos. Adicionalmente, nuestra propuesta se centrará en la construcción de estimadores que tengan una fuerte relación entre rendimiento y coste computacional. Con respecto a éste último punto, estudiamos un conjunto de estrategias para la clasificación de género y las comparamos con una propuesta basada en un clasificador Bayesiano y una adecuada extracción de características. Analizamos en profundidad el motivo de porqué las técnicas lineales no han logrado resultados competitivos hasta la fecha y mostramos cómo obtener rendimientos similares a las mejores técnicas no-lineales. Se propone un segundo algoritmo para la estimación de edad, basado en un regresor K-NN y una adecuada selección de características tal como se propuso para la clasificación de género. A partir de los experimentos desarrollados, observamos que el rendimiento de los clasificadores se reduce significativamente si los ´estos han sido entrenados y probados sobre diferentes bases de datos. Hemos encontrado que una de las causas es la existencia de dependencias entre atributos faciales que no han sido consideradas en la construcción de los clasificadores. Nuestro resultados demuestran que la variabilidad intra-clase puede ser reducida cuando se consideran las dependencias estadísticas entre los atributos faciales de el género, la edad y la pose; mejorando el rendimiento de nuestros clasificadores de atributos faciales con un coste computacional pequeño. Abstract Surely the human face provides much more information than we think. The face provides without our consent nonverbal cues from facial interactions that reveal our emotional state, cognitive activity, personality and disease. Recent studies [OFT14, TODMS15] show that many of our social and interpersonal decisions derive from a previous facial analysis that allows us to establish whether that person is trustworthy, hardworking, intelligent, etc. This error-prone interpretation derives from the innate ability of human beings to find and interpret these signals. This capability is being studied, with a special interest in developing methods that have the ability to automatically calculate these signs or attributes associated with the face. Thus, the interest in the estimation of facial attributes has grown rapidly in recent years by the various applications in which these methods can be used: targeted marketing, security systems, human-computer interaction, etc. However, these are far from being perfect and robust in any domain of problems. The main difficulty encountered is caused by the high intra-class variability due to changes in the condition of the image: lighting changes, occlusions, facial expressions, age, gender, ethnicity, etc.; often found in images acquired in uncontrolled environments. This research work studies image analysis techniques to estimate facial attributes such as gender, age and pose, using linear methods, and exploiting the statistical dependencies between these attributes. In addition, our proposal will focus on the construction of classifiers that have a good balance between performance and computational cost. We studied a set of strategies for gender classification and we compare them with a proposal based on a Bayesian classifier and a suitable feature extraction based on Linear Discriminant Analysis. We study in depth why linear techniques have failed to provide competitive results to date and show how to obtain similar performances to the best non-linear techniques. A second algorithm is proposed for estimating age, which is based on a K-NN regressor and proper selection of features such as those proposed for the classification of gender. From our experiments we note that performance estimates are significantly reduced if they have been trained and tested on different databases. We have found that one of the causes is the existence of dependencies between facial features that have not been considered in the construction of classifiers. Our results demonstrate that intra-class variability can be reduced when considering the statistical dependencies between facial attributes gender, age and pose, thus improving the performance of our classifiers with a reduced computational cost.

Herramienta de interacción persona-ordenador para la operación de vehículos aéreos no tripulados

En la presente memoria se describe el trabajo de diseño de una herramienta de interacción persona-ordenador (HMI) para la operación y supervisión de vehículos aéreos no tripulados (UAV). En primer lugar se hace una introducción a los tipos de UAVs y aplicaciones más comunes, describiendo sus características técnicas y los componentes que integra en el sistema. Mediante la revisión y análisis de los diferentes niveles de autonomía y las diferentes soluciones de presentación existentes en el mercado, se identifican los modos de operación y componentes principales de la interfaz. A continuación se describe el diseño final del software de la interfaz y el proceso de desarrollo de la misma, para ello se hace un análisis previo del software robótico sobre el que opera el sistema abordo del UAV y se establecen los enlaces de comunicación entre cada uno de los componentes y los requisitos de integración con el sistema. Finalmente, se muestran las pruebas que se han realizado para validar la construcción de la herramienta. This report outlines the design and construction of a human-machine interface (HMI), designed to facilitate the supervision and operation with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). First, it is described an introduction to UAVs classification and application fields, reviewing the hardware features and software integration components. In order to define the basic components and operation modes in the general design, a brief review of the different presentation solutions and autonomous levels is described. As a result, it is presented the final software design, the components details and the system integration requirements. Finally, it is also concluded with some of the tests that have been conducted to validate the design and construction of the human-machine interface

A cybernetic theory about computer interfaces and human factors within a framework of technological innovation

This paper is based on the following postulates taken from a book recently published by this author (Sáez-Vacas, 1990(1)): a) technological innovation in a company is understood to be the process and set of changes that the company undergoes as a result of a specific type of technology; b) the incorporation of technology in the company does not necessarily result in innovation, modernization and progress; c) the very words "modernization" and "progress" are completely bereft of any meaning if isolated from the concept of complexity in its broadest sense, including the human factor. Turning to office technology in specific, the problem of managing office technology for business innovation purposes can be likened to the problem of managing third level complexity, following the guidelines of a three-level complexity model proposed by the author some years ago

A New Multidisciplinary Home Care Telemedicine System to Monitor Stable Chronic Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Patients: A Randomized Study

BACKGROUND: Antiretroviral therapy has changed the natural history of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in developed countries, where it has become a chronic disease. This clinical scenario requires a new approach to simplify follow-up appointments and facilitate access to healthcare professionals. METHODOLOGY: We developed a new internet-based home care model covering the entire management of chronic HIV-infected patients. This was called Virtual Hospital. We report the results of a prospective randomised study performed over two years, comparing standard care received by HIV-infected patients with Virtual Hospital care. HIV-infected patients with access to a computer and broadband were randomised to be monitored either through Virtual Hospital (Arm I) or through standard care at the day hospital (Arm II). After one year of follow up, patients switched their care to the other arm. Virtual Hospital offered four main services: Virtual Consultations, Telepharmacy, Virtual Library and Virtual Community. A technical and clinical evaluation of Virtual Hospital was carried out. FINDINGS: Of the 83 randomised patients, 42 were monitored during the first year through Virtual Hospital (Arm I) and 41 through standard care (Arm II). Baseline characteristics of patients were similar in the two arms. The level of technical satisfaction with the virtual system was high: 85% of patients considered that Virtual Hospital improved their access to clinical data and they felt comfortable with the videoconference system. Neither clinical parameters [level of CD4+ T lymphocytes, proportion of patients with an undetectable level of viral load (p = 0.21) and compliance levels >90% (p = 0.58)] nor the evaluation of quality of life or psychological questionnaires changed significantly between the two types of care. CONCLUSIONS: Virtual Hospital is a feasible and safe tool for the multidisciplinary home care of chronic HIV patients. Telemedicine should be considered as an appropriate support service for the management of chronic HIV infection. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical-Trials.gov: NCT01117675.

IDT-3D: Identification and tracking in controlled environments using a 3D unified user interface

Identification and tracking of objects in specific environments such as harbors or security areas is a matter of great importance nowadays. With this purpose, numerous systems based on different technologies have been developed, resulting in a great amount of gathered data displayed through a variety of interfaces. Such amount of information has to be evaluated by human operators in order to take the correct decisions, sometimes under highly critical situations demanding both speed and accuracy. In order to face this problem we describe IDT-3D, a platform for identification and tracking of vessels in a harbour environment able to represent fused information in real time using a Virtual Reality application. The effectiveness of using IDT-3D as an integrated surveillance system is currently under evaluation. Preliminary results point to a significant decrease in the times of reaction and decision making of operators facing up a critical situation. Although the current application focus of IDT-3D is quite specific, the results of this research could be extended to the identification and tracking of targets in other controlled environments of interest as coastlines, borders or even urban areas.

VLC-based light-weight portable user interface for in-house applications.

Advances in solid-state lighting have overcome common limitations on optical wireless such as power needs due to light dispersion. It's been recently proposed the modification of lamp's drivers to take advantages of its switching behaviour to include data links maintaining the illumination control they provide. In this paper, a remote access application using visible light communications is presented that provides wireless access to a remote computer using a touchscreen as user interface

Survey and brain storming studies about machines, constructions, human and environmental risk consideration in the careers of the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid

The Universidad Politécnica of Madrid (UPM) includes schools and faculties that were for engineering degrees, architecture and computer science, that are now in a quick EEES Bolonia Plan metamorphosis getting into degrees, masters and doctorate structures. They are focused towards action in machines, constructions, enterprises, that are subjected to machines, human and environment created risks. These are present in actions such as use loads, wind, snow, waves, flows, earthquakes, forces and effects in machines, vehicles behavior, chemical effects, and other environmental factors including effects of crops, cattle and beasts, forests, and varied essential economic and social disturbances. Emphasis is for authors in this session more about risks of natural origin, such as for hail, winds, snow or waves that are not exactly known a priori, but that are often considered with statistical expected distributions giving extreme values for convenient return periods. These distributions are known from measures in time, statistic of extremes and models about hazard scenarios and about responses of man made constructions or devices. In each engineering field theories were built about hazards scenarios and how to cover for important risks. Engineers must get that the systems they handle, such as vehicles, machines, firms or agro lands or forests, obtain production with enough safety for persons and with decent economic results in spite of risks. For that risks must be considered in planning, in realization and in operation, and safety margins must be taken but at a reasonable cost. That is a small level of risks will often remain, due to limitations in costs or because of due to strange hazards, and maybe they will be covered by insurance in cases such as in transport with cars, ships or aircrafts, in agro for hail, or for fire in houses or in forests. These and other decisions about quality, security for men or about business financial risks are sometimes considered with Decision Theories models, using often tools from Statistics or operational Research. The authors have done and are following field surveys about risk consideration in the careers in UPM, making deep analysis of curricula taking into account the new structures of degrees in the EEES Bolonia Plan, and they have considered the risk structures offered by diverse schools of Decision theories. That gives an aspect of the needs and uses, and recommendations about improving in the teaching about risk, that may include special subjects especially oriented for each career, school or faculty, so as to be recommended to be included into the curricula, including an elaboration and presentation format using a multi-criteria decision model.

OntoTag - A Linguistic and Ontological Annotation Model Suitable for the Semantic Web

OntoTag - A Linguistic and Ontological Annotation Model Suitable for the Semantic Web 1. INTRODUCTION. LINGUISTIC TOOLS AND ANNOTATIONS: THEIR LIGHTS AND SHADOWS Computational Linguistics is already a consolidated research area. It builds upon the results of other two major ones, namely Linguistics and Computer Science and Engineering, and it aims at developing computational models of human language (or natural language, as it is termed in this area). Possibly, its most well-known applications are the different tools developed so far for processing human language, such as machine translation systems and speech recognizers or dictation programs. These tools for processing human language are commonly referred to as linguistic tools. Apart from the examples mentioned above, there are also other types of linguistic tools that perhaps are not so well-known, but on which most of the other applications of Computational Linguistics are built. These other types of linguistic tools comprise POS taggers, natural language parsers and semantic taggers, amongst others. All of them can be termed linguistic annotation tools. Linguistic annotation tools are important assets. In fact, POS and semantic taggers (and, to a lesser extent, also natural language parsers) have become critical resources for the computer applications that process natural language. Hence, any computer application that has to analyse a text automatically and ‘intelligently’ will include at least a module for POS tagging. The more an application needs to ‘understand’ the meaning of the text it processes, the more linguistic tools and/or modules it will incorporate and integrate. However, linguistic annotation tools have still some limitations, which can be summarised as follows: 1. Normally, they perform annotations only at a certain linguistic level (that is, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, etc.). 2. They usually introduce a certain rate of errors and ambiguities when tagging. This error rate ranges from 10 percent up to 50 percent of the units annotated for unrestricted, general texts. 3. Their annotations are most frequently formulated in terms of an annotation schema designed and implemented ad hoc. A priori, it seems that the interoperation and the integration of several linguistic tools into an appropriate software architecture could most likely solve the limitations stated in (1). Besides, integrating several linguistic annotation tools and making them interoperate could also minimise the limitation stated in (2). Nevertheless, in the latter case, all these tools should produce annotations for a common level, which would have to be combined in order to correct their corresponding errors and inaccuracies. Yet, the limitation stated in (3) prevents both types of integration and interoperation from being easily achieved. In addition, most high-level annotation tools rely on other lower-level annotation tools and their outputs to generate their own ones. For example, sense-tagging tools (operating at the semantic level) often use POS taggers (operating at a lower level, i.e., the morphosyntactic) to identify the grammatical category of the word or lexical unit they are annotating. Accordingly, if a faulty or inaccurate low-level annotation tool is to be used by other higher-level one in its process, the errors and inaccuracies of the former should be minimised in advance. Otherwise, these errors and inaccuracies would be transferred to (and even magnified in) the annotations of the high-level annotation tool. Therefore, it would be quite useful to find a way to (i) correct or, at least, reduce the errors and the inaccuracies of lower-level linguistic tools; (ii) unify the annotation schemas of different linguistic annotation tools or, more generally speaking, make these tools (as well as their annotations) interoperate. Clearly, solving (i) and (ii) should ease the automatic annotation of web pages by means of linguistic tools, and their transformation into Semantic Web pages (Berners-Lee, Hendler and Lassila, 2001). Yet, as stated above, (ii) is a type of interoperability problem. There again, ontologies (Gruber, 1993; Borst, 1997) have been successfully applied thus far to solve several interoperability problems. Hence, ontologies should help solve also the problems and limitations of linguistic annotation tools aforementioned. Thus, to summarise, the main aim of the present work was to combine somehow these separated approaches, mechanisms and tools for annotation from Linguistics and Ontological Engineering (and the Semantic Web) in a sort of hybrid (linguistic and ontological) annotation model, suitable for both areas. This hybrid (semantic) annotation model should (a) benefit from the advances, models, techniques, mechanisms and tools of these two areas; (b) minimise (and even solve, when possible) some of the problems found in each of them; and (c) be suitable for the Semantic Web. The concrete goals that helped attain this aim are presented in the following section. 2. GOALS OF THE PRESENT WORK As mentioned above, the main goal of this work was to specify a hybrid (that is, linguistically-motivated and ontology-based) model of annotation suitable for the Semantic Web (i.e. it had to produce a semantic annotation of web page contents). This entailed that the tags included in the annotations of the model had to (1) represent linguistic concepts (or linguistic categories, as they are termed in ISO/DCR (2008)), in order for this model to be linguistically-motivated; (2) be ontological terms (i.e., use an ontological vocabulary), in order for the model to be ontology-based; and (3) be structured (linked) as a collection of ontology-based triples, as in the usual Semantic Web languages (namely RDF(S) and OWL), in order for the model to be considered suitable for the Semantic Web. Besides, to be useful for the Semantic Web, this model should provide a way to automate the annotation of web pages. As for the present work, this requirement involved reusing the linguistic annotation tools purchased by the OEG research group (http://www.oeg-upm.net), but solving beforehand (or, at least, minimising) some of their limitations. Therefore, this model had to minimise these limitations by means of the integration of several linguistic annotation tools into a common architecture. Since this integration required the interoperation of tools and their annotations, ontologies were proposed as the main technological component to make them effectively interoperate. From the very beginning, it seemed that the formalisation of the elements and the knowledge underlying linguistic annotations within an appropriate set of ontologies would be a great step forward towards the formulation of such a model (henceforth referred to as OntoTag). Obviously, first, to combine the results of the linguistic annotation tools that operated at the same level, their annotation schemas had to be unified (or, preferably, standardised) in advance. This entailed the unification (id. standardisation) of their tags (both their representation and their meaning), and their format or syntax. Second, to merge the results of the linguistic annotation tools operating at different levels, their respective annotation schemas had to be (a) made interoperable and (b) integrated. And third, in order for the resulting annotations to suit the Semantic Web, they had to be specified by means of an ontology-based vocabulary, and structured by means of ontology-based triples, as hinted above. Therefore, a new annotation scheme had to be devised, based both on ontologies and on this type of triples, which allowed for the combination and the integration of the annotations of any set of linguistic annotation tools. This annotation scheme was considered a fundamental part of the model proposed here, and its development was, accordingly, another major objective of the present work. All these goals, aims and objectives could be re-stated more clearly as follows: Goal 1: Development of a set of ontologies for the formalisation of the linguistic knowledge relating linguistic annotation. Sub-goal 1.1: Ontological formalisation of the EAGLES (1996a; 1996b) de facto standards for morphosyntactic and syntactic annotation, in a way that helps respect the triple structure recommended for annotations in these works (which is isomorphic to the triple structures used in the context of the Semantic Web). Sub-goal 1.2: Incorporation into this preliminary ontological formalisation of other existing standards and standard proposals relating the levels mentioned above, such as those currently under development within ISO/TC 37 (the ISO Technical Committee dealing with Terminology, which deals also with linguistic resources and annotations). Sub-goal 1.3: Generalisation and extension of the recommendations in EAGLES (1996a; 1996b) and ISO/TC 37 to the semantic level, for which no ISO/TC 37 standards have been developed yet. Sub-goal 1.4: Ontological formalisation of the generalisations and/or extensions obtained in the previous sub-goal as generalisations and/or extensions of the corresponding ontology (or ontologies). Sub-goal 1.5: Ontological formalisation of the knowledge required to link, combine and unite the knowledge represented in the previously developed ontology (or ontologies). Goal 2: Development of OntoTag’s annotation scheme, a standard-based abstract scheme for the hybrid (linguistically-motivated and ontological-based) annotation of texts. Sub-goal 2.1: Development of the standard-based morphosyntactic annotation level of OntoTag’s scheme. This level should include, and possibly extend, the recommendations of EAGLES (1996a) and also the recommendations included in the ISO/MAF (2008) standard draft. Sub-goal 2.2: Development of the standard-based syntactic annotation level of the hybrid abstract scheme. This level should include, and possibly extend, the recommendations of EAGLES (1996b) and the ISO/SynAF (2010) standard draft. Sub-goal 2.3: Development of the standard-based semantic annotation level of OntoTag’s (abstract) scheme. Sub-goal 2.4: Development of the mechanisms for a convenient integration of the three annotation levels already mentioned. These mechanisms should take into account the recommendations included in the ISO/LAF (2009) standard draft. Goal 3: Design of OntoTag’s (abstract) annotation architecture, an abstract architecture for the hybrid (semantic) annotation of texts (i) that facilitates the integration and interoperation of different linguistic annotation tools, and (ii) whose results comply with OntoTag’s annotation scheme. Sub-goal 3.1: Specification of the decanting processes that allow for the classification and separation, according to their corresponding levels, of the results of the linguistic tools annotating at several different levels. Sub-goal 3.2: Specification of the standardisation processes that allow (a) complying with the standardisation requirements of OntoTag’s annotation scheme, as well as (b) combining the results of those linguistic tools that share some level of annotation. Sub-goal 3.3: Specification of the merging processes that allow for the combination of the output annotations and the interoperation of those linguistic tools that share some level of annotation. Sub-goal 3.4: Specification of the merge processes that allow for the integration of the results and the interoperation of those tools performing their annotations at different levels. Goal 4: Generation of OntoTagger’s schema, a concrete instance of OntoTag’s abstract scheme for a concrete set of linguistic annotations. These linguistic annotations result from the tools and the resources available in the research group, namely • Bitext’s DataLexica (http://www.bitext.com/EN/datalexica.asp), • LACELL’s (POS) tagger (http://www.um.es/grupos/grupo-lacell/quees.php), • Connexor’s FDG (http://www.connexor.eu/technology/machinese/glossary/fdg/), and • EuroWordNet (Vossen et al., 1998). This schema should help evaluate OntoTag’s underlying hypotheses, stated below. Consequently, it should implement, at least, those levels of the abstract scheme dealing with the annotations of the set of tools considered in this implementation. This includes the morphosyntactic, the syntactic and the semantic levels. Goal 5: Implementation of OntoTagger’s configuration, a concrete instance of OntoTag’s abstract architecture for this set of linguistic tools and annotations. This configuration (1) had to use the schema generated in the previous goal; and (2) should help support or refute the hypotheses of this work as well (see the next section). Sub-goal 5.1: Implementation of the decanting processes that facilitate the classification and separation of the results of those linguistic resources that provide annotations at several different levels (on the one hand, LACELL’s tagger operates at the morphosyntactic level and, minimally, also at the semantic level; on the other hand, FDG operates at the morphosyntactic and the syntactic levels and, minimally, at the semantic level as well). Sub-goal 5.2: Implementation of the standardisation processes that allow (i) specifying the results of those linguistic tools that share some level of annotation according to the requirements of OntoTagger’s schema, as well as (ii) combining these shared level results. In particular, all the tools selected perform morphosyntactic annotations and they had to be conveniently combined by means of these processes. Sub-goal 5.3: Implementation of the merging processes that allow for the combination (and possibly the improvement) of the annotations and the interoperation of the tools that share some level of annotation (in particular, those relating the morphosyntactic level, as in the previous sub-goal). Sub-goal 5.4: Implementation of the merging processes that allow for the integration of the different standardised and combined annotations aforementioned, relating all the levels considered. Sub-goal 5.5: Improvement of the semantic level of this configuration by adding a named entity recognition, (sub-)classification and annotation subsystem, which also uses the named entities annotated to populate a domain ontology, in order to provide a concrete application of the present work in the two areas involved (the Semantic Web and Corpus Linguistics). 3. MAIN RESULTS: ASSESSMENT OF ONTOTAG’S UNDERLYING HYPOTHESES The model developed in the present thesis tries to shed some light on (i) whether linguistic annotation tools can effectively interoperate; (ii) whether their results can be combined and integrated; and, if they can, (iii) how they can, respectively, interoperate and be combined and integrated. Accordingly, several hypotheses had to be supported (or rejected) by the development of the OntoTag model and OntoTagger (its implementation). The hypotheses underlying OntoTag are surveyed below. Only one of the hypotheses (H.6) was rejected; the other five could be confirmed. H.1 The annotations of different levels (or layers) can be integrated into a sort of overall, comprehensive, multilayer and multilevel annotation, so that their elements can complement and refer to each other. • CONFIRMED by the development of: o OntoTag’s annotation scheme, o OntoTag’s annotation architecture, o OntoTagger’s (XML, RDF, OWL) annotation schemas, o OntoTagger’s configuration. H.2 Tool-dependent annotations can be mapped onto a sort of tool-independent annotations and, thus, can be standardised. • CONFIRMED by means of the standardisation phase incorporated into OntoTag and OntoTagger for the annotations yielded by the tools. H.3 Standardisation should ease: H.3.1: The interoperation of linguistic tools. H.3.2: The comparison, combination (at the same level and layer) and integration (at different levels or layers) of annotations. • H.3 was CONFIRMED by means of the development of OntoTagger’s ontology-based configuration: o Interoperation, comparison, combination and integration of the annotations of three different linguistic tools (Connexor’s FDG, Bitext’s DataLexica and LACELL’s tagger); o Integration of EuroWordNet-based, domain-ontology-based and named entity annotations at the semantic level. o Integration of morphosyntactic, syntactic and semantic annotations. H.4 Ontologies and Semantic Web technologies (can) play a crucial role in the standardisation of linguistic annotations, by providing consensual vocabularies and standardised formats for annotation (e.g., RDF triples). • CONFIRMED by means of the development of OntoTagger’s RDF-triple-based annotation schemas. H.5 The rate of errors introduced by a linguistic tool at a given level, when annotating, can be reduced automatically by contrasting and combining its results with the ones coming from other tools, operating at the same level. However, these other tools might be built following a different technological (stochastic vs. rule-based, for example) or theoretical (dependency vs. HPS-grammar-based, for instance) approach. • CONFIRMED by the results yielded by the evaluation of OntoTagger. H.6 Each linguistic level can be managed and annotated independently. • REJECTED: OntoTagger’s experiments and the dependencies observed among the morphosyntactic annotations, and between them and the syntactic annotations. In fact, Hypothesis H.6 was already rejected when OntoTag’s ontologies were developed. We observed then that several linguistic units stand on an interface between levels, belonging thereby to both of them (such as morphosyntactic units, which belong to both the morphological level and the syntactic level). Therefore, the annotations of these levels overlap and cannot be handled independently when merged into a unique multileveled annotation. 4. OTHER MAIN RESULTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS First, interoperability is a hot topic for both the linguistic annotation community and the whole Computer Science field. The specification (and implementation) of OntoTag’s architecture for the combination and integration of linguistic (annotation) tools and annotations by means of ontologies shows a way to make these different linguistic annotation tools and annotations interoperate in practice. Second, as mentioned above, the elements involved in linguistic annotation were formalised in a set (or network) of ontologies (OntoTag’s linguistic ontologies). • On the one hand, OntoTag’s network of ontologies consists of − The Linguistic Unit Ontology (LUO), which includes a mostly hierarchical formalisation of the different types of linguistic elements (i.e., units) identifiable in a written text; − The Linguistic Attribute Ontology (LAO), which includes also a mostly hierarchical formalisation of the different types of features that characterise the linguistic units included in the LUO; − The Linguistic Value Ontology (LVO), which includes the corresponding formalisation of the different values that the attributes in the LAO can take; − The OIO (OntoTag’s Integration Ontology), which  Includes the knowledge required to link, combine and unite the knowledge represented in the LUO, the LAO and the LVO;  Can be viewed as a knowledge representation ontology that describes the most elementary vocabulary used in the area of annotation. • On the other hand, OntoTag’s ontologies incorporate the knowledge included in the different standards and recommendations for linguistic annotation released so far, such as those developed within the EAGLES and the SIMPLE European projects or by the ISO/TC 37 committee: − As far as morphosyntactic annotations are concerned, OntoTag’s ontologies formalise the terms in the EAGLES (1996a) recommendations and their corresponding terms within the ISO Morphosyntactic Annotation Framework (ISO/MAF, 2008) standard; − As for syntactic annotations, OntoTag’s ontologies incorporate the terms in the EAGLES (1996b) recommendations and their corresponding terms within the ISO Syntactic Annotation Framework (ISO/SynAF, 2010) standard draft; − Regarding semantic annotations, OntoTag’s ontologies generalise and extend the recommendations in EAGLES (1996a; 1996b) and, since no stable standards or standard drafts have been released for semantic annotation by ISO/TC 37 yet, they incorporate the terms in SIMPLE (2000) instead; − The terms coming from all these recommendations and standards were supplemented by those within the ISO Data Category Registry (ISO/DCR, 2008) and also of the ISO Linguistic Annotation Framework (ISO/LAF, 2009) standard draft when developing OntoTag’s ontologies. Third, we showed that the combination of the results of tools annotating at the same level can yield better results (both in precision and in recall) than each tool separately. In particular, 1. OntoTagger clearly outperformed two of the tools integrated into its configuration, namely DataLexica and FDG in all the combination sub-phases in which they overlapped (i.e. POS tagging, lemma annotation and morphological feature annotation). As far as the remaining tool is concerned, i.e. LACELL’s tagger, it was also outperformed by OntoTagger in POS tagging and lemma annotation, and it did not behave better than OntoTagger in the morphological feature annotation layer. 2. As an immediate result, this implies that a) This type of combination architecture configurations can be applied in order to improve significantly the accuracy of linguistic annotations; and b) Concerning the morphosyntactic level, this could be regarded as a way of constructing more robust and more accurate POS tagging systems. Fourth, Semantic Web annotations are usually performed by humans or else by machine learning systems. Both of them leave much to be desired: the former, with respect to their annotation rate; the latter, with respect to their (average) precision and recall. In this work, we showed how linguistic tools can be wrapped in order to annotate automatically Semantic Web pages using ontologies. This entails their fast, robust and accurate semantic annotation. As a way of example, as mentioned in Sub-goal 5.5, we developed a particular OntoTagger module for the recognition, classification and labelling of named entities, according to the MUC and ACE tagsets (Chinchor, 1997; Doddington et al., 2004). These tagsets were further specified by means of a domain ontology, namely the Cinema Named Entities Ontology (CNEO). This module was applied to the automatic annotation of ten different web pages containing cinema reviews (that is, around 5000 words). In addition, the named entities annotated with this module were also labelled as instances (or individuals) of the classes included in the CNEO and, then, were used to populate this domain ontology. • The statistical results obtained from the evaluation of this particular module of OntoTagger can be summarised as follows. On the one hand, as far as recall (R) is concerned, (R.1) the lowest value was 76,40% (for file 7); (R.2) the highest value was 97, 50% (for file 3); and (R.3) the average value was 88,73%. On the other hand, as far as the precision rate (P) is concerned, (P.1) its minimum was 93,75% (for file 4); (R.2) its maximum was 100% (for files 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10); and (R.3) its average value was 98,99%. • These results, which apply to the tasks of named entity annotation and ontology population, are extraordinary good for both of them. They can be explained on the basis of the high accuracy of the annotations provided by OntoTagger at the lower levels (mainly at the morphosyntactic level). However, they should be conveniently qualified, since they might be too domain- and/or language-dependent. It should be further experimented how our approach works in a different domain or a different language, such as French, English, or German. • In any case, the results of this application of Human Language Technologies to Ontology Population (and, accordingly, to Ontological Engineering) seem very promising and encouraging in order for these two areas to collaborate and complement each other in the area of semantic annotation. Fifth, as shown in the State of the Art of this work, there are different approaches and models for the semantic annotation of texts, but all of them focus on a particular view of the semantic level. Clearly, all these approaches and models should be integrated in order to bear a coherent and joint semantic annotation level. OntoTag shows how (i) these semantic annotation layers could be integrated together; and (ii) they could be integrated with the annotations associated to other annotation levels. Sixth, we identified some recommendations, best practices and lessons learned for annotation standardisation, interoperation and merge. They show how standardisation (via ontologies, in this case) enables the combination, integration and interoperation of different linguistic tools and their annotations into a multilayered (or multileveled) linguistic annotation, which is one of the hot topics in the area of Linguistic Annotation. And last but not least, OntoTag’s annotation scheme and OntoTagger’s annotation schemas show a way to formalise and annotate coherently and uniformly the different units and features associated to the different levels and layers of linguistic annotation. This is a great scientific step ahead towards the global standardisation of this area, which is the aim of ISO/TC 37 (in particular, Subcommittee 4, dealing with the standardisation of linguistic annotations and resources).

Improving Hardware Reuse through XML-based Interface Encapsulation

This work proposes an encapsulation scheme aimed at simplifying the reuse process of hardware cores. This hardware encapsulation approach has been conceived with a twofold objective. First, we look for the improvement of the reuse interface associated with the hardware core description. This is carried out in a first encapsulation level by improving the limited types and configuration options available in the conventional HDLs interface, and also providing information related to the implementation itself. Second, we have devised a more generic interface focused on describing the function avoiding details from a particular implementation, what corresponds to a second encapsulation level. This encapsulation allows the designer to define how to configure and use the design to implement a given functionality. The proposed encapsulation schemes help improving the amount of information that can be supplied with the design, and also allow to automate the process of searching, configuring and implementing diverse alternatives.

Commonalities between networking in multiplayer computer games and negotiation processes in a future multi-layered Air Traffic Management (ATM) system

First, this paper describes a future layered Air Traffic Management (ATM) system centred in the execution phase of flights. The layered ATM model is based on the work currently performed by SESAR [1] and takes into account the availability of accurate and updated flight information ?seen by all? across the European airspace. This shared information of each flight will be referred as Reference Business Trajectory (RBT). In the layered ATM system, exchanges of information will involve several actors (human or automatic), which will have varying time horizons, areas of responsibility and tasks. Second, the paper will identify the need to define the negotiation processes required to agree revisions to the RBT in the layered ATM system. Third, the final objective of the paper is to bring to the attention of researchers and engineers the communalities between multi-player games and Collaborative Decision Making processes (CDM) in a layered ATM system

Consolidation of a wsn and minimax method to rapidly neutralise intruders in strategic installations

Due to the sensitive international situation caused by still-recent terrorist attacks, there is a common need to protect the safety of large spaces such as government buildings, airports and power stations. To address this problem, developments in several research fields, such as video and cognitive audio, decision support systems, human interface, computer architecture, communications networks and communications security, should be integrated with the goal of achieving advanced security systems capable of checking all of the specified requirements and spanning the gap that presently exists in the current market. This paper describes the implementation of a decision system for crisis management in infrastructural building security. Specifically, it describes the implementation of a decision system in the management of building intrusions. The positions of the unidentified persons are reported with the help of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The goal is to achieve an intelligent system capable of making the best decision in real time in order to quickly neutralise one or more intruders who threaten strategic installations. It is assumed that the intruders’ behaviour is inferred through sequences of sensors’ activations and their fusion. This article presents a general approach to selecting the optimum operation from the available neutralisation strategies based on a Minimax algorithm. The distances among different scenario elements will be used to measure the risk of the scene, so a path planning technique will be integrated in order to attain a good performance. Different actions to be executed over the elements of the scene such as moving a guard, blocking a door or turning on an alarm will be used to neutralise the crisis. This set of actions executed to stop the crisis is known as the neutralisation strategy. Finally, the system has been tested in simulations of real situations, and the results have been evaluated according to the final state of the intruders. In 86.5% of the cases, the system achieved the capture of the intruders, and in 59.25% of the cases, they were intercepted before they reached their objective.

User Experience in Human-Technology Interaction. Communication, context and evaluation methodology

En esta Tesis se presentan dos líneas de investigación relacionadas y que contribuyen a las áreas de Interacción Hombre-Tecnología (o Máquina; siglas en inglés: HTI o HMI), lingüística computacional y evaluación de la experiencia del usuario. Las dos líneas en cuestión son el diseño y la evaluación centrada en el usuario de sistemas de Interacción Hombre-Máquina avanzados. En la primera parte de la Tesis (Capítulos 2 a 4) se abordan cuestiones fundamentales del diseño de sistemas HMI avanzados. El Capítulo 2 presenta una panorámica del estado del arte de la investigación en el ámbito de los sistemas conversacionales multimodales, con la que se enmarca el trabajo de investigación presentado en el resto de la Tesis. Los Capítulos 3 y 4 se centran en dos grandes aspectos del diseño de sistemas HMI: un gestor del diálogo generalizado para tratar la Interacción Hombre-Máquina multimodal y sensible al contexto, y el uso de agentes animados personificados (ECAs) para mejorar la robustez del diálogo, respectivamente. El Capítulo 3, sobre gestión del diálogo, aborda el tratamiento de la heterogeneidad de la información proveniente de las modalidades comunicativas y de los sensores externos. En este capítulo se propone, en un nivel de abstracción alto, una arquitectura para la gestión del diálogo con influjos heterogéneos de información, apoyándose en el uso de State Chart XML. En el Capítulo 4 se presenta una contribución a la representación interna de intenciones comunicativas, y su traducción a secuencias de gestos a ejecutar por parte de un ECA, diseñados específicamente para mejorar la robustez en situaciones de diálogo críticas que pueden surgir, por ejemplo, cuando se producen errores de entendimiento en la comunicación entre el usuario humano y la máquina. Se propone, en estas páginas, una extensión del Functional Mark-up Language definido en el marco conceptual SAIBA. Esta extensión permite representar actos comunicativos que realizan intenciones del emisor (la máquina) que no se pretende sean captadas conscientemente por el receptor (el usuario humano), pero con las que se pretende influirle a éste e influir el curso del diálogo. Esto se consigue mediante un objeto llamado Base de Intenciones Comunicativas (en inglés, Communication Intention Base, o CIB). La representación en el CIB de intenciones “no claradas” además de las explícitas permite la construcción de actos comunicativos que realizan simultáneamente varias intenciones comunicativas. En el Capítulo 4 también se describe un sistema experimental para el control remoto (simulado) de un asistente domótico, con autenticación de locutor para dar acceso, y con un ECA en el interfaz de cada una de estas tareas. Se incluye una descripción de las secuencias de comportamiento verbal y no verbal de los ECAs, que fueron diseñados específicamente para determinadas situaciones con objeto de mejorar la robustez del diálogo. Los Capítulos 5 a 7 conforman la parte de la Tesis dedicada a la evaluación. El Capítulo 5 repasa antecedentes relevantes en la literatura de tecnologías de la información en general, y de sistemas de interacción hablada en particular. Los principales antecedentes en el ámbito de la evaluación de la interacción sobre los cuales se ha desarrollado el trabajo presentado en esta Tesis son el Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), la herramienta Subjective Assessment of Speech System Interfaces (SASSI), y la Recomendación P.851 de la ITU-T. En el Capítulo 6 se describen un marco y una metodología de evaluación aplicados a la experiencia del usuario con sistemas HMI multimodales. Se desarrolló con este propósito un novedoso marco de evaluación subjetiva de la calidad de la experiencia del usuario y su relación con la aceptación por parte del mismo de la tecnología HMI (el nombre dado en inglés a este marco es Subjective Quality Evaluation Framework). En este marco se articula una estructura de clases de factores subjetivos relacionados con la satisfacción y aceptación por parte del usuario de la tecnología HMI propuesta. Esta estructura, tal y como se propone en la presente tesis, tiene dos dimensiones ortogonales. Primero se identifican tres grandes clases de parámetros relacionados con la aceptación por parte del usuario: “agradabilidad ” (likeability: aquellos que tienen que ver con la experiencia de uso, sin entrar en valoraciones de utilidad), rechazo (los cuales sólo pueden tener una valencia negativa) y percepción de utilidad. En segundo lugar, este conjunto clases se reproduce para distintos “niveles, o focos, percepción del usuario”. Éstos incluyen, como mínimo, un nivel de valoración global del sistema, niveles correspondientes a las tareas a realizar y objetivos a alcanzar, y un nivel de interfaz (en los casos propuestos en esta tesis, el interfaz es un sistema de diálogo con o sin un ECA). En el Capítulo 7 se presenta una evaluación empírica del sistema descrito en el Capítulo 4. El estudio se apoya en los mencionados antecedentes en la literatura, ampliados con parámetros para el estudio específico de los agentes animados (los ECAs), la auto-evaluación de las emociones de los usuarios, así como determinados factores de rechazo (concretamente, la preocupación por la privacidad y la seguridad). También se evalúa el marco de evaluación subjetiva de la calidad propuesto en el capítulo anterior. Los análisis de factores efectuados revelan una estructura de parámetros muy cercana conceptualmente a la división de clases en utilidad-agradabilidad-rechazo propuesta en dicho marco, resultado que da cierta validez empírica al marco. Análisis basados en regresiones lineales revelan estructuras de dependencias e interrelación entre los parámetros subjetivos y objetivos considerados. El efecto central de mediación, descrito en el Technology Acceptance Model, de la utilidad percibida sobre la relación de dependencia entre la intención de uso y la facilidad de uso percibida, se confirma en el estudio presentado en la presente Tesis. Además, se ha encontrado que esta estructura de relaciones se fortalece, en el estudio concreto presentado en estas páginas, si las variables consideradas se generalizan para cubrir más ampliamente las categorías de agradabilidad y utilidad contempladas en el marco de evaluación subjetiva de calidad. Se ha observado, asimismo, que los factores de rechazo aparecen como un componente propio en los análisis de factores, y además se distinguen por su comportamiento: moderan la relación entre la intención de uso (que es el principal indicador de la aceptación del usuario) y su predictor más fuerte, la utilidad percibida. Se presentan también resultados de menor importancia referentes a los efectos de los ECAs sobre los interfaces de los sistemas de diálogo y sobre los parámetros de percepción y las valoraciones de los usuarios que juegan un papel en conformar su aceptación de la tecnología. A pesar de que se observa un rendimiento de la interacción dialogada ligeramente mejor con ECAs, las opiniones subjetivas son muy similares entre los dos grupos experimentales (uno interactuando con un sistema de diálogo con ECA, y el otro sin ECA). Entre las pequeñas diferencias encontradas entre los dos grupos destacan las siguientes: en el grupo experimental sin ECA (es decir, con interfaz sólo de voz) se observó un efecto más directo de los problemas de diálogo (por ejemplo, errores de reconocimiento) sobre la percepción de robustez, mientras que el grupo con ECA tuvo una respuesta emocional más positiva cuando se producían problemas. Los ECAs parecen generar inicialmente expectativas más elevadas en cuanto a las capacidades del sistema, y los usuarios de este grupo se declaran más seguros de sí mismos en su interacción. Por último, se observan algunos indicios de efectos sociales de los ECAs: la “amigabilidad ” percibida los ECAs estaba correlada con un incremento la preocupación por la seguridad. Asimismo, los usuarios del sistema con ECAs tendían más a culparse a sí mismos, en lugar de culpar al sistema, de los problemas de diálogo que pudieran surgir, mientras que se observó una ligera tendencia opuesta en el caso de los usuarios del sistema con interacción sólo de voz. ABSTRACT This Thesis presents two related lines of research work contributing to the general fields of Human-Technology (or Machine) Interaction (HTI, or HMI), computational linguistics, and user experience evaluation. These two lines are the design and user-focused evaluation of advanced Human-Machine (or Technology) Interaction systems. The first part of the Thesis (Chapters 2 to 4) is centred on advanced HMI system design. Chapter 2 provides a background overview of the state of research in multimodal conversational systems. This sets the stage for the research work presented in the rest of the Thesis. Chapers 3 and 4 focus on two major aspects of HMI design in detail: a generalised dialogue manager for context-aware multimodal HMI, and embodied conversational agents (ECAs, or animated agents) to improve dialogue robustness, respectively. Chapter 3, on dialogue management, deals with how to handle information heterogeneity, both from the communication modalities or from external sensors. A highly abstracted architectural contribution based on State Chart XML is proposed. Chapter 4 presents a contribution for the internal representation of communication intentions and their translation into gestural sequences for an ECA, especially designed to improve robustness in critical dialogue situations such as when miscommunication occurs. We propose an extension of the functionality of Functional Mark-up Language, as envisaged in much of the work in the SAIBA framework. Our extension allows the representation of communication acts that carry intentions that are not for the interlocutor to know of, but which are made to influence him or her as well as the flow of the dialogue itself. This is achieved through a design element we have called the Communication Intention Base. Such r pr s ntation of “non- clar ” int ntions allows th construction of communication acts that carry several communication intentions simultaneously. Also in Chapter 4, an experimental system is described which allows (simulated) remote control to a home automation assistant, with biometric (speaker) authentication to grant access, featuring embodied conversation agents for each of the tasks. The discussion includes a description of the behavioural sequences for the ECAs, which were designed for specific dialogue situations with particular attention given to the objective of improving dialogue robustness. Chapters 5 to 7 form the evaluation part of the Thesis. Chapter 5 reviews evaluation approaches in the literature for information technologies, as well as in particular for speech-based interaction systems, that are useful precedents to the contributions of the present Thesis. The main evaluation precedents on which the work in this Thesis has built are the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Subjective Assessment of Speech System Interfaces (SASSI) tool, and ITU-T Recommendation P.851. Chapter 6 presents the author’s work in establishing an valuation framework and methodology applied to the users’ experience with multimodal HMI systems. A novel user-acceptance Subjective Quality Evaluation Framework was developed by the author specifically for this purpose. A class structure arises from two orthogonal sets of dimensions. First we identify three broad classes of parameters related with user acceptance: likeability factors (those that have to do with the experience of using the system), rejection factors (which can only have a negative valence) and perception of usefulness. Secondly, the class structure is further broken down into several “user perception levels”; at the very least: an overall system-assessment level, task and goal-related levels, and an interface level (e.g., a dialogue system with or without an ECA). An empirical evaluation of the system described in Chapter 4 is presented in Chapter 7. The study was based on the abovementioned precedents in the literature, expanded with categories covering the inclusion of an ECA, the users’ s lf-assessed emotions, and particular rejection factors (privacy and security concerns). The Subjective Quality Evaluation Framework proposed in the previous chapter was also scrutinised. Factor analyses revealed an item structure very much related conceptually to the usefulness-likeability-rejection class division introduced above, thus giving it some empirical weight. Regression-based analysis revealed structures of dependencies, paths of interrelations, between the subjective and objective parameters considered. The central mediation effect, in the Technology Acceptance Model, of perceived usefulness on the dependency relationship of intention-to-use with perceived ease of use was confirmed in this study. Furthermore, the pattern of relationships was stronger for variables covering more broadly the likeability and usefulness categories in the Subjective Quality Evaluation Framework. Rejection factors were found to have a distinct presence as components in factor analyses, as well as distinct behaviour: they were found to moderate the relationship between intention-to-use (the main measure of user acceptance) and its strongest predictor, perceived usefulness. Insights of secondary importance are also given regarding the effect of ECAs on the interface of spoken dialogue systems and the dimensions of user perception and judgement attitude that may have a role in determining user acceptance of the technology. Despite observing slightly better performance values in the case of the system with the ECA, subjective opinions regarding both systems were, overall, very similar. Minor differences between two experimental groups (one interacting with an ECA, the other only through speech) include a more direct effect of dialogue problems (e.g., non-understandings) on perceived dialogue robustness for the voice-only interface test group, and a more positive emotional response for the ECA test group. Our findings further suggest that the ECA generates higher initial expectations, and users seem slightly more confident in their interaction with the ECA than do those without it. Finally, mild evidence of social effects of ECAs was also found: the perceived friendliness of the ECA increased security concerns, and ECA users may tend to blame themselves rather than the system when dialogue problems are encountered, while the opposite may be true for voice-only users.

Fast human pose estimation using 3D Zernike descriptors

Markerless video-based human pose estimation algorithms face a high-dimensional problem that is frequently broken down into several lower-dimensional ones by estimating the pose of each limb separately. However, in order to do so they need to reliably locate the torso, for which they typically rely on time coherence and tracking algorithms. Their losing track usually results in catastrophic failure of the process, requiring human intervention and thus precluding their usage in real-time applications. We propose a very fast rough pose estimation scheme based on global shape descriptors built on 3D Zernike moments. Using an articulated model that we configure in many poses, a large database of descriptor/pose pairs can be computed off-line. Thus, the only steps that must be done on-line are the extraction of the descriptors for each input volume and a search against the database to get the most likely poses. While the result of such process is not a fine pose estimation, it can be useful to help more sophisticated algorithms to regain track or make more educated guesses when creating new particles in particle-filter-based tracking schemes. We have achieved a performance of about ten fps on a single computer using a database of about one million entries.