Creating an open-books implementation framework for a maintenance-related value-based life-cycle model

This study is a qualitative action research by its nature with elements of personal design in the form of a tangible model implementation framework construction. Utilized empirical data has been gathered via two questionnaires in relation to the arranged four workshop events with twelve individual participants. Five of them represented maintenance customers, three maintenance service providers and four equipment providers respectively. Further, there are two main research objectives in proportion to the two complementary focusing areas of this thesis. Firstly, the value-based life-cycle model, which first version has already been developed prior to this thesis, requires updating in order to increase its real-life applicability as an inter-firm decision-making tool in industrial maintenance. This first research objective is fulfilled by improving appearance, intelligibility and usability of the above-mentioned model. In addition, certain new features are also added. The workshop participants from the collaborating companies were reasonably pleased with made changes, although further attention will be required in future on the model’s intelligibility in particular as main results, charts and values were all reckoned as slightly hard to understand. Moreover, upgraded model’s appearance and added new features satisfied them the most. Secondly and more importantly, the premises of the model’s possible inter-firm implementation process need to be considered. This second research objective is delivered in two consecutive steps. At first, a bipartite open-books supported implementation framework is created and its different characteristics discussed in theory. Afterwards, the prerequisites and the pitfalls of increasing inter-organizational information transparency are studied in empirical context. One of the main findings was that the organizations are not yet prepared for network-wide information disclosure as dyadic collaboration was favored instead. However, they would be willing to share information bilaterally at least. Another major result was that the present state of companies’ cost accounting systems will definitely need implementation-wise enhancing in future since accurate and sufficiently detailed maintenance data is not available. Further, it will also be crucial to create supporting and mutually agreed network infrastructure. There are hardly any collaborative models, methods or tools currently in usage. Lastly, the essential questions about mutual trust and predominant purchasing strategies are cooperation-wise important. If inter-organizational activities are expanded, a more relational approach should be favored in this regard. Mutual trust was also recognized as a significant cooperation factor, but it is hard to measure in reality.

In Search for the European solidarity: The rule of law within the European Union in the framework of constitutional pluralism

The dissertation examines the rule of law within the European Union in the theoretical framework of constitutional pluralism. The leading lines of constitutional pluralism are examined with relation to the traditional and prevailing, monistic and hierarchical conceptions on how to perceive legal orders in Europe. The theoretical part offers also historical perspective by highlighting some of the turning points for the Union constitutional legal order in the framework of European integration. The concept of rule of law is examined in legal terms and its meaning to the Union constitutional constellation as a constitutional principle and a common value is observed. The realization of the rule of law at supranational and national level is explored with a view to discover that recent developments in some of the Member States give rise to concern about the viability of the rule of law within the European Union. It is recognized that the inobservance of the rule of law at national level causes a threat to the supranational constitutional legal order. The relationship between the supranational and national legal orders is significant in this respect and therefore particularly the interaction between the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter the ECJ) and the Member States’ (constitutional/supreme) courts takes focus. It is observed that functioning dialogue between the supranational and national courts based on mutual respect and judicial deference is an important prerequisite for the realization of the rule of law within Europe. In order to afford a concrete example, a recent case C-62/14 Gauweiler v Deutscher Bundestag is introduced and analysed in relation to the notorious relationship between the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany and the ECJ. The implications of the ECJ’s decision in Gauweiler v Deutscher Bundestag is assessed with reference to some of the pressing issues of constitutionalism within Europe and some institutional aspects are also brought forward. Lastly, the feasibility of constitutional pluralism as a theoretical setting is measured against the legal reality of today’s Europe and its many constitutions. The hierarchical idea of one ultimate source of power, stemming from the traditional approaches to legal systems, is then assessed with relation to the requirement of the realization of the rule of law within the European Union from the supranational and national point of view.

A DYNAMIC FRAMEWORK FOR THE RELATIONS BETWEEN FOREIGN EXCHANGE RATES, SAVINGS AND INVESTMENTS

The Meese-Rogoff forecasting puzzle states that foreign exchange (FX) rates are unpredictable. Since one country’s macroeconomic conditions could affect the price of its national currency, we study the dynamic relations between the FX rates and some macroeconomic accounts. Our research tests whether the predictability of the FX rates could be improved through the advanced econometrics. Improving the predictability of the FX rates has important implications for various groups including investors, business entities and the government. The present thesis examines the dynamic relations between the FX rates, savings and investments for a sample of 25 countries from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We apply quarterly data of FX rates, macroeconomic indices and accounts including the savings and the investments over three decades. Through preliminary Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root tests and Johansen cointegration tests, we found that the savings rate and the investment rate are cointegrated with the vector (1,-1). This result is consistent with many previous studies on the savings-investment relations and therefore confirms the validity of the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle. Because of the special cointegrating relation between the savings rate and investment rate, we introduce the savings-investment rate differential (SID). Investigating each country through a vector autoregression (VAR) model, we observe extremely insignificant coefficient estimates of the historical SIDs upon the present FX rates. We also report similar findings through the panel VAR approach. We thus conclude that the historical SIDs are useless in forecasting the FX rate. Nonetheless, the coefficients of the past FX rates upon the current SIDs for both the country-specific and the panel VAR models are statistically significant. Therefore, we conclude that the historical FX rates can conversely predict the SID to some degree. Specifically, depreciation in the domestic currency would cause the increase in the SID.

Sustainable Watershed Management: Illusion or Reality? A case of Kerala State in India

Soil erosion is more detrimental and affects the chemical, physical and biological properties of the soil. Degradation of soil and water resources is a worldwide problem. Over the next two decades, it is expected that the world will need 17% more water to grow food for the increasing population in developing countries and that total water use will increase by 40%. The total land area subjected to human-induced soil degradation is estimated as 20 x 106 (km)2 Hence conservation of soil and water is essential for the subsistence of life. This can be made possible through sustainable watershed management. This thesis aims at investigating the condition under which sustainable watershed management is possible in Kerala, in South India. The research has been carried out in three stages. In the first stage a conceptual framework is formulated (Chapter 3) based on the relevant literature (Chapter 2) in the field of watershed management. In the second stage this framework is applied to two existing case studies in Kerala State (Chapter 4). In the third stage, the methodology is used to test out geo textile innovation (Chapter 5) in two field experiments (Chapter 6).

Land re-use, complexity and actor-networks: a framework for research

This paper will present a conceptual framework for the examination of land redevelopment based on a complex systems/networks approach. As Alvin Toffler insightfully noted, modern scientific enquiry has become exceptionally good at splitting problems into pieces but has forgotten how to put the pieces back together. Twenty-five years after his remarks, governments and corporations faced with the requirements of sustainability are struggling to promote an ‘integrated’ or ‘holistic’ approach to tackling problems. Despite the talk, both practice and research provide few platforms that allow for ‘joined up’ thinking and action. With socio-economic phenomena, such as land redevelopment, promising prospects open up when we assume that their constituents can make up complex systems whose emergent properties are more than the sum of the parts and whose behaviour is inherently difficult to predict. A review of previous research shows that it has mainly focused on idealised, ‘mechanical’ views of property development processes that fail to recognise in full the relationships between actors, the structures created and their emergent qualities. When reality failed to live up to the expectations of these theoretical constructs then somebody had to be blamed for it: planners, developers, politicians. However, from a ‘synthetic’ point of view the agents and networks involved in property development can be seen as constituents of structures that perform complex processes. These structures interact, forming new more complex structures and networks. Redevelopment then can be conceptualised as a process of transformation: a complex system, a ‘dissipative’ structure involving developers, planners, landowners, state agencies etc., unlocks the potential of previously used sites, transforms space towards a higher order of complexity and ‘consumes’ but also ‘creates’ different forms of capital in the process. Analysis of network relations point toward the ‘dualism’ of structure and agency in these processes of system transformation and change. Insights from actor network theory can be conjoined with notions of complexity and chaos to build an understanding of the ways in which actors actively seek to shape these structures and systems, whilst at the same time are recursively shaped by them in their strategies and actions. This approach transcends the blame game and allows for inter-disciplinary inputs to be placed within a broader explanatory framework that does away with many past dichotomies. Better understanding of the interactions between actors and the emergent qualities of the networks they form can improve our comprehension of the complex socio-spatial phenomena that redevelopment comprises. The insights that this framework provides when applied in UK institutional investment into redevelopment are considered to be significant.

Towards global drought early warning capability: expanding international cooperation for the development of a framework for global drought monitoring and forecasting

Drought is a global problem that has far-reaching impacts and especially 47 on vulnerable populations in developing regions. This paper highlights the need for a Global Drought Early Warning System (GDEWS), the elements that constitute its underlying framework (GDEWF) and the recent progress made towards its development. Many countries lack drought monitoring systems, as well as the capacity to respond via appropriate political, institutional and technological frameworks, and these have inhibited the development of integrated drought management plans or early warning systems. The GDEWS will provide a source of drought tools and products via the GDEWF for countries and regions to develop tailored drought early warning systems for their own users. A key goal of a GDEWS is to maximize the lead time for early warning, allowing drought managers and disaster coordinators more time to put mitigation measures in place to reduce the vulnerability to drought. To address this, the GDEWF will take both a top-down approach to provide global real-time drought monitoring and seasonal forecasting, and a bottom-up approach that builds upon existing national and regional systems to provide continental to global coverage. A number of challenges must be overcome, however, before a GDEWS can become a reality, including the lack of in-situ measurement networks and modest seasonal forecast skill in many regions, and the lack of infrastructure to translate data into useable information. A set of international partners, through a series of recent workshops and evolving collaborations, has made progress towards meeting these challenges and developing a global system.

Global minimization using an Augmented Lagrangian method with variable lower-level constraints

A novel global optimization method based on an Augmented Lagrangian framework is introduced for continuous constrained nonlinear optimization problems. At each outer iteration k the method requires the epsilon(k)-global minimization of the Augmented Lagrangian with simple constraints, where epsilon(k) -> epsilon. Global convergence to an epsilon-global minimizer of the original problem is proved. The subproblems are solved using the alpha BB method. Numerical experiments are presented.

Simbrain: A visual framework for neural network analysis and education

Simbrain is a visually-oriented framework for building and analyzing neural networks. It emphasizes the analysis of networks which control agents embedded in virtual environments, and visualization of the structures which occur in the high dimensional state spaces of these networks. The program was originally intended to facilitate analysis of representational processes in embodied agents, however it is also well suited to teaching neural networks concepts to a broader audience than is traditional for neural networks courses. Simbrain was used to teach a course at a new university, UC Merced, in its inaugural year. Experiences from the course and sample lessons are provided.

Articulated Narrowcasting for Privacy and Awareness in Multimedia Conferencing Systems and Design for Implementation Within a SIP Framework

This article proposes a new focus of research for multimedia conferencing systems which allows a participant to flexibly select another participant or a group for media transmission. For example, in a traditional conference system, participants voices might by default be shared with all others, but one might want to select a subset of the conference members to send his/her media to or receive media from. We review the concept of narrowcasting, a model for limiting such information streams in a multimedia conference, and describe a design to use existing standard protocols (SIP and SDP) for controlling fine-grained narrowcasting sessions.

A user supported object tracking framework for interactive video production

We present a user supported tracking framework that combines automatic tracking with extended user input to create error free tracking results that are suitable for interactive video production. The goal of our approach is to keep the necessary user input as small as possible. In our framework, the user can select between different tracking algorithms - existing ones and new ones that are described in this paper. Furthermore, the user can automatically fuse the results of different tracking algorithms with our robust fusion approach. The tracked object can be marked in more than one frame, which can significantly improve the tracking result. After tracking, the user can validate the results in an easy way, thanks to the support of a powerful interpolation technique. The tracking results are iteratively improved until the complete track has been found. After the iterative editing process the tracking result of each object is stored in an interactive video file that can be loaded by our player for interactive videos.

Ecological validity of virtual reality daily living activities screening for early dementia: longitudinal study

Background: Dementia is a multifaceted disorder that impairs cognitive functions, such as memory, language, and executive functions necessary to plan, organize, and prioritize tasks required for goal-directed behaviors. In most cases, individuals with dementia experience difficulties interacting with physical and social environments. The purpose of this study was to establish ecological validity and initial construct validity of a fire evacuation Virtual Reality Day-Out Task (VR-DOT) environment based on performance profiles as a screening tool for early dementia. Objective: The objectives were (1) to examine the relationships among the performances of 3 groups of participants in the VR-DOT and traditional neuropsychological tests employed to assess executive functions, and (2) to compare the performance of participants with mild Alzheimer’s-type dementia (AD) to those with amnestic single-domain mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy controls in the VR-DOT and traditional neuropsychological tests used to assess executive functions. We hypothesized that the 2 cognitively impaired groups would have distinct performance profiles and show significantly impaired independent functioning in ADL compared to the healthy controls. Methods: The study population included 3 groups: 72 healthy control elderly participants, 65 amnestic MCI participants, and 68 mild AD participants. A natural user interface framework based on a fire evacuation VR-DOT environment was used for assessing physical and cognitive abilities of seniors over 3 years. VR-DOT focuses on the subtle errors and patterns in performing everyday activities and has the advantage of not depending on a subjective rating of an individual person. We further assessed functional capacity by both neuropsychological tests (including measures of attention, memory, working memory, executive functions, language, and depression). We also evaluated performance in finger tapping, grip strength, stride length, gait speed, and chair stands separately and while performing VR-DOTs in order to correlate performance in these measures with VR-DOTs because performance while navigating a virtual environment is a valid and reliable indicator of cognitive decline in elderly persons. Results: The mild AD group was more impaired than the amnestic MCI group, and both were more impaired than healthy controls. The novel VR-DOT functional index correlated strongly with standard cognitive and functional measurements, such as mini-mental state examination (MMSE; rho=0.26, P=.01) and Bristol Activities of Daily Living (ADL) scale scores (rho=0.32, P=.001). Conclusions: Functional impairment is a defining characteristic of predementia and is partly dependent on the degree of cognitive impairment. The novel virtual reality measures of functional ability seem more sensitive to functional impairment than qualitative measures in predementia, thus accurately differentiating from healthy controls. We conclude that VR-DOT is an effective tool for discriminating predementia and mild AD from controls by detecting differences in terms of errors, omissions, and perseverations while measuring ADL functional ability.

Catching Reality or Bowing Disciplines: How to Move the Study of Citizenship

In his contribution, Joppke justifies his selection of foundational scholars by linking each to what he sees as the three key facets of citizenship: status, rights and identity. Maarten Vink explicitly links his research agenda to the first, status, and outlines why it is so important. In identifying three facets of citizenship, Joppke acknowledges that some academics would include political participation, but he ultimately decides against it. But here we can, and should, broaden citizenship studies by bringing in insights from the behavioral politics tradition in domestic politics - when and why people engage in political acts - and from the social movements literature in sociology. I believe that the American debate on immigration reform, admittedly stalled, would not have advanced as far as it has without the social movement activism of DREAMers - unauthorized young people pushing for a path to citizenship - and the belief that Barack Obama won re-election in part because of the Latino vote. Importantly, one type of political activism demands formal citizenship, the other does not. As many contributors note, the “national models” approach has had a significant impact on citizenship studies. Whether one views such models through a cultural, institutional or historical lens, this tends to be a top-down, macro-level framework. What about immigrants’ agency? In Canada, although the ruling Conservative government is shifting citizenship discourse to a more traditional language - as Winter points out - it has not reduced immigration, ended dual citizenship, or eliminated multiculturalism, all goals of the Reform Party that the current prime minister once helped build. “Lock-in” effects (or policy feedback loops) based on high immigrant naturalization and the coming of age of a second-generation with citizenship also d emands study, in North America and elsewhere. Much of the research thus far suggests that political decisions over citizenship status and rights do not seem linked to immigrants’ political activism. State-centered decision-making may have characterized policy in the early post-World War II period in Europe (and East Asia?), but does it continue to hold today? Majority publics and immigrant-origin residents are increasingly politicized around citizenship and immigration. Does immigrant agency extend citizenship status, rights and identity to those born outside the polity? Is electoral power key, or is protest necessary? How is citizenship practiced, and contested, irrespective of formal status? These are important and understudied empirical questions, ones that demand theoretical creativity - across sub-fields and disciplines - in conceptualizing and understanding citizenship in contemporary times.

Research review : searching for a new framework for Thailand's foreign policy in the post-cold war era

Thai foreign policy in the 1990s has been said to be contingent on the government in power, which changes between (or within) these groups and vacillates between pro-democratic reformists/principle-pursuers and the conservatives/profit-seekers. In these studies, Thailand’s Indochinese policy has often been referred to as a typical consequence of politics between the pragmatists and the reformists. However, whether or not domestic oppositional politics is the key determinant of foreign policy in the post-Cold War era still requires further examination, precisely because the model is now facing serious challenges between theory and reality. In this paper, I review the existing arguments concerning Thailand’s foreign policy in the post-Cold War Era and point out their limitations and questions for future study.

Conceptual framework for the design, implementation and validation of psychomotor skills’ assessment systems in minimally invasive surgery

Las técnicas de cirugía de mínima invasión (CMI) se están consolidando hoy en día como alternativa a la cirugía tradicional, debido a sus numerosos beneficios para los pacientes. Este cambio de paradigma implica que los cirujanos deben aprender una serie de habilidades distintas de aquellas requeridas en cirugía abierta. El entrenamiento y evaluación de estas habilidades se ha convertido en una de las mayores preocupaciones en los programas de formación de cirujanos, debido en gran parte a la presión de una sociedad que exige cirujanos bien preparados y una reducción en el número de errores médicos. Por tanto, se está prestando especial atención a la definición de nuevos programas que permitan el entrenamiento y la evaluación de las habilidades psicomotoras en entornos seguros antes de que los nuevos cirujanos puedan operar sobre pacientes reales. Para tal fin, hospitales y centros de formación están gradualmente incorporando instalaciones de entrenamiento donde los residentes puedan practicar y aprender sin riesgos. Es cada vez más común que estos laboratorios dispongan de simuladores virtuales o simuladores físicos capaces de registrar los movimientos del instrumental de cada residente. Estos simuladores ofrecen una gran variedad de tareas de entrenamiento y evaluación, así como la posibilidad de obtener información objetiva de los ejercicios. Los diferentes estudios de validación llevados a cabo dan muestra de su utilidad; pese a todo, los niveles de evidencia presentados son en muchas ocasiones insuficientes. Lo que es más importante, no existe un consenso claro a la hora de definir qué métricas son más útiles para caracterizar la pericia quirúrgica. El objetivo de esta tesis doctoral es diseñar y validar un marco de trabajo conceptual para la definición y validación de entornos para la evaluación de habilidades en CMI, en base a un modelo en tres fases: pedagógica (tareas y métricas a emplear), tecnológica (tecnologías de adquisición de métricas) y analítica (interpretación de la competencia en base a las métricas). Para tal fin, se describe la implementación práctica de un entorno basado en (1) un sistema de seguimiento de instrumental fundamentado en el análisis del vídeo laparoscópico; y (2) la determinación de la pericia en base a métricas de movimiento del instrumental. Para la fase pedagógica se diseñó e implementó un conjunto de tareas para la evaluación de habilidades psicomotoras básicas, así como una serie de métricas de movimiento. La validación de construcción llevada a cabo sobre ellas mostró buenos resultados para tiempo, camino recorrido, profundidad, velocidad media, aceleración media, economía de área y economía de volumen. Adicionalmente, los resultados obtenidos en la validación de apariencia fueron en general positivos en todos los grupos considerados (noveles, residentes, expertos). Para la fase tecnológica, se introdujo el EVA Tracking System, una solución para el seguimiento del instrumental quirúrgico basado en el análisis del vídeo endoscópico. La precisión del sistema se evaluó a 16,33ppRMS para el seguimiento 2D de la herramienta en la imagen; y a 13mmRMS para el seguimiento espacial de la misma. La validación de construcción con una de las tareas de evaluación mostró buenos resultados para tiempo, camino recorrido, profundidad, velocidad media, aceleración media, economía de área y economía de volumen. La validación concurrente con el TrEndo® Tracking System por su parte presentó valores altos de correlación para 8 de las 9 métricas analizadas. Finalmente, para la fase analítica se comparó el comportamiento de tres clasificadores supervisados a la hora de determinar automáticamente la pericia quirúrgica en base a la información de movimiento del instrumental, basados en aproximaciones lineales (análisis lineal discriminante, LDA), no lineales (máquinas de soporte vectorial, SVM) y difusas (sistemas adaptativos de inferencia neurodifusa, ANFIS). Los resultados muestran que en media SVM presenta un comportamiento ligeramente superior: 78,2% frente a los 71% y 71,7% obtenidos por ANFIS y LDA respectivamente. Sin embargo las diferencias estadísticas medidas entre los tres no fueron demostradas significativas. En general, esta tesis doctoral corrobora las hipótesis de investigación postuladas relativas a la definición de sistemas de evaluación de habilidades para cirugía de mínima invasión, a la utilidad del análisis de vídeo como fuente de información y a la importancia de la información de movimiento de instrumental a la hora de caracterizar la pericia quirúrgica. Basándose en estos cimientos, se han de abrir nuevos campos de investigación que contribuyan a la definición de programas de formación estructurados y objetivos, que puedan garantizar la acreditación de cirujanos sobradamente preparados y promocionen la seguridad del paciente en el quirófano. Abstract Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) techniques have become a standard in many surgical sub-specialties, due to their many benefits for patients. However, this shift in paradigm implies that surgeons must acquire a complete different set of skills than those normally attributed to open surgery. Training and assessment of these skills has become a major concern in surgical learning programmes, especially considering the social demand for better-prepared professionals and for the decrease of medical errors. Therefore, much effort is being put in the definition of structured MIS learning programmes, where practice with real patients in the operating room (OR) can be delayed until the resident can attest for a minimum level of psychomotor competence. To this end, skills’ laboratory settings are being introduced in hospitals and training centres where residents may practice and be assessed on their psychomotor skills. Technological advances in the field of tracking technologies and virtual reality (VR) have enabled the creation of new learning systems such as VR simulators or enhanced box trainers. These systems offer a wide range of tasks, as well as the capability of registering objective data on the trainees’ performance. Validation studies give proof of their usefulness; however, levels of evidence reported are in many cases low. More importantly, there is still no clear consensus on topics such as the optimal metrics that must be used to assess competence, the validity of VR simulation, the portability of tracking technologies into real surgeries (for advanced assessment) or the degree to which the skills measured and obtained in laboratory environments transfer to the OR. The purpose of this PhD is to design and validate a conceptual framework for the definition and validation of MIS assessment environments based on a three-pillared model defining three main stages: pedagogical (tasks and metrics to employ), technological (metric acquisition technologies) and analytical (interpretation of competence based on metrics). To this end, a practical implementation of the framework is presented, focused on (1) a video-based tracking system and (2) the determination of surgical competence based on the laparoscopic instruments’ motionrelated data. The pedagogical stage’s results led to the design and implementation of a set of basic tasks for MIS psychomotor skills’ assessment, as well as the definition of motion analysis parameters (MAPs) to measure performance on said tasks. Validation yielded good construct results for parameters such as time, path length, depth, average speed, average acceleration, economy of area and economy of volume. Additionally, face validation results showed positive acceptance on behalf of the experts, residents and novices. For the technological stage the EVA Tracking System is introduced. EVA provides a solution for tracking laparoscopic instruments from the analysis of the monoscopic video image. Accuracy tests for the system are presented, which yielded an average RMSE of 16.33pp for 2D tracking of the instrument on the image and of 13mm for 3D spatial tracking. A validation experiment was conducted using one of the tasks and the most relevant MAPs. Construct validation showed significant differences for time, path length, depth, average speed, average acceleration, economy of area and economy of volume; especially between novices and residents/experts. More importantly, concurrent validation with the TrEndo® Tracking System presented high correlation values (>0.7) for 8 of the 9 MAPs proposed. Finally, the analytical stage allowed comparing the performance of three different supervised classification strategies in the determination of surgical competence based on motion-related information. The three classifiers were based on linear (linear discriminant analysis, LDA), non-linear (support vector machines, SVM) and fuzzy (adaptive neuro fuzzy inference systems, ANFIS) approaches. Results for SVM show slightly better performance than the other two classifiers: on average, accuracy for LDA, SVM and ANFIS was of 71.7%, 78.2% and 71% respectively. However, when confronted, no statistical significance was found between any of the three. Overall, this PhD corroborates the investigated research hypotheses regarding the definition of MIS assessment systems, the use of endoscopic video analysis as the main source of information and the relevance of motion analysis in the determination of surgical competence. New research fields in the training and assessment of MIS surgeons can be proposed based on these foundations, in order to contribute to the definition of structured and objective learning programmes that guarantee the accreditation of well-prepared professionals and the promotion of patient safety in the OR.

An attitude-based reasoning strategy to enhance interaction with augmented objects

This paper describes a mobile-based system to interact with objects in smart spaces, where the offer of resources may be extensive. The underlying idea is to use the augmentation capabilities of the mobile device to enable it as user-object mediator. In particular, the paper details how to build an attitude-based reasoning strategy that facilitates user-object interaction and resource filtering. The strategy prioritizes the available resources depending on the spatial history of the user, his real-time location and orientation and, finally, his active touch and focus interactions with the virtual overlay. The proposed reasoning method has been partially validated through a prototype that handles 2D and 3D visualization interfaces. This framework makes possible to develop in practice the IoT paradigm, augmenting the objects without physically modifying them.