No cure for curiosity: Linking physical and digital urban layers

Although mobile phones are often used in public urban places to interact with one’s geographically dispersed social circle, they can also facilitate interactions with people in the same public urban space. The PlaceTagz study investigates how physical artefacts in public urban places can be utilised and combined with mobile phone technologies to facilitate interactions. Printed on stickers, PlaceTagz are QR codes linking to a digital message board enabling collocated users to interact with each other over time resulting in a place-based digital memory. This exploratory project set out to investigate if and how PlaceTagz are used by urban dwellers in a real world deployment. We present findings from analysing content received through PlaceTagz and interview data from application users. QR codes, which do not contain any contextual information, piqued the curiosity of users wondering about the embedded link’s destination and provoked comments in regards to people, place and technology.

Stigmergy in Web 2.0 : a model for site dynamics

Building Web 2.0 sites does not necessarily ensure the success of the site. We aim to better understand what improves the success of a site by drawing insight from biologically inspired design patterns. Web 2.0 sites provide a mechanism for human interaction enabling powerful intercommunication between massive volumes of users. Early Web 2.0 site providers that were previously dominant are being succeeded by newer sites providing innovative social interaction mechanisms. Understanding what site traits contribute to this success drives research into Web sites mechanics using models to describe the associated social networking behaviour. Some of these models attempt to show how the volume of users provides a self-organising and self-contextualisation of content. One model describing coordinated environments is called stigmergy, a term originally describing coordinated insect behavior. This paper explores how exploiting stigmergy can provide a valuable mechanism for identifying and analysing online user behavior specifically when considering that user freedom of choice is restricted by the provided web site functionality. This will aid our building better collaborative Web sites improving the collaborative processes.

Robust facial feature extraction and matching

Automated feature extraction and correspondence determination is an extremely important problem in the face recognition community as it often forms the foundation of the normalisation and database construction phases of many recognition and verification systems. This paper presents a completely automatic feature extraction system based upon a modified volume descriptor. These features form a stable descriptor for faces and are utilised in a reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo correspondence algorithm to automatically determine correspondences which exist between faces. The developed system is invariant to changes in pose and occlusion and results indicate that it is also robust to minor face deformations which may be present with variations in expression.

Is the unigram relevance model term independent? Classifying term dependencies in query expansion

This paper develops a framework for classifying term dependencies in query expansion with respect to the role terms play in structural linguistic associations. The framework is used to classify and compare the query expansion terms produced by the unigram and positional relevance models. As the unigram relevance model does not explicitly model term dependencies in its estimation process it is often thought to ignore dependencies that exist between words in natural language. The framework presented in this paper is underpinned by two types of linguistic association, namely syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations. It was found that syntagmatic associations were a more prevalent form of linguistic association used in query expansion. Paradoxically, it was the unigram model that exhibited this association more than the positional relevance model. This surprising finding has two potential implications for information retrieval models: (1) if linguistic associations underpin query expansion, then a probabilistic term dependence assumption based on position is inadequate for capturing them; (2) the unigram relevance model captures more term dependency information than its underlying theoretical model suggests, so its normative position as a baseline that ignores term dependencies should perhaps be reviewed.

A tensor encoding model for semantic processing

This paper develops and evaluates an enhanced corpus based approach for semantic processing. Corpus based models that build representations of words directly from text do not require pre-existing linguistic knowledge, and have demonstrated psychologically relevant performance on a number of cognitive tasks. However, they have been criticised in the past for not incorporating sufficient structural information. Using ideas underpinning recent attempts to overcome this weakness, we develop an enhanced tensor encoding model to build representations of word meaning for semantic processing. Our enhanced model demonstrates superior performance when compared to a robust baseline model on a number of semantic processing tasks.

The social car : new interactive vehicular applications derived from social media and urban informatics

Digital information that is place- and time-specific, is increasingly becoming available on all aspects of the urban landscape. People (cf. the Social Web), places (cf. the Geo Web), and physical objects (cf. ubiquitous computing, the Internet of Things) are increasingly infused with sensors, actuators, and tagged with a wealth of digital information. Urban informatics research explores these emerging digital layers of the city at the intersection of people, place and technology. However, little is known about the challenges and new opportunities that these digital layers may offer to road users driving through today’s mega cities. We argue that this aspect is worth exploring in particular with regards to Auto-UI’s overarching goal of making cars both safer and more enjoyable. This paper presents the findings of a pilot study, which included 14 urban informatics research experts participating in a guided ideation (idea creation) workshop within a simulated environment. They were immersed into different driving scenarios to imagine novel urban informatics type of applications specific to the driving context.

Can you describe him for me? A technique for semantic person search in video

From a law enforcement standpoint, the ability to search for a person matching a semantic description (i.e. 1.8m tall, red shirt, jeans) is highly desirable. While a significant research effort has focused on person re-detection (the task of identifying a previously observed individual in surveillance video), these techniques require descriptors to be built from existing image or video observations. As such, person re-detection techniques are not suited to situations where footage of the person of interest is not readily available, such as a witness reporting a recent crime. In this paper, we present a novel framework that is able to search for a person based on a semantic description. The proposed approach uses size and colour cues, and does not require a person detection routine to locate people in the scene, improving utility in crowded conditions. The proposed approach is demonstrated with a new database that will be made available to the research community, and we show that the proposed technique is able to correctly localise a person in a video based on a simple semantic description.

A database for person re-identification in multi-camera surveillance networks

Person re-identification involves recognising individuals in different locations across a network of cameras and is a challenging task due to a large number of varying factors such as pose (both subject and camera) and ambient lighting conditions. Existing databases do not adequately capture these variations, making evaluations of proposed techniques difficult. In this paper, we present a new challenging multi-camera surveillance database designed for the task of person re-identification. This database consists of 150 unscripted sequences of subjects travelling in a building environment though up to eight camera views, appearing from various angles and in varying illumination conditions. A flexible XML-based evaluation protocol is provided to allow a highly configurable evaluation setup, enabling a variety of scenarios relating to pose and lighting conditions to be evaluated. A baseline person re-identification system consisting of colour, height and texture models is demonstrated on this database.

Personality, genre and videogame play experience

This study explored relationships between personality, videogame preference and gaming experiences. Four hundred and sixty-six participants completed an online survey in which they recalled a recent gaming experience, and provided measures of personality and their gaming experience via the Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ). Relationships between game genre, personality and gaming experience were found. Results are interpreted with reference to possible implications for a positive impact on wellbeing of videogame play and possible means of improving the breadth of appeal of specific genres.

Towards visualising people’s ecology of hybrid personal learning environments

Ambient media architecture can provide place-based collaborative learning experiences and pathways for social interactions that would not be otherwise possible. This paper is concerned with ways of enhancing peer-to-peer learning affordances in library spaces; how can the library facilitate the community of library users to learn from each other? We report on the findings of a study that employed a participatory design method where participants were asked to reflect and draw places, social networks, and activities that they use to work (be creative, productive), play (have fun, socialize, be entertained), and learn (acquire new information, knowledge, or skills). The results illustrate how informal learning – learning outside the formal education system – is facilitated by a personal selection of physical and socio-cultural environments, as well as online tools, platforms, and networks. This paper sheds light on participants’ individually curated ecologies of their work, play, and learning related networks and the hybrid (physical and digital) nature of these places. These insights reveal opportunities for ambient media architecture to increase awareness of and connections between people’s hybrid personal learning environments.

Multi-cursor multi-user mobile interaction with a large shared display

When using a mobile device to control a cursor on a large shared display, the interaction must be carefully planned to match the environment and purpose of the systems use. We describe a ‘democratic jukebox’ system that revealed five recommendations that should be considered when designing this type of interaction relating to providing feedback to the user; how to represent users in a multi-cursor based system; where people tend to look and their expectation of how to move their cursor; the orientation of screens and the social context; and, the use of simulated users to give the real users a sense that they are engaging with a greater audience.

Mystery at the library : encouraging library exploration using a pervasive mobile game

This paper presents Secret SLQ, a pervasive mobile game that aims to encourage eight to fourteen year olds to engage with the State Library of Queensland. The game sets out to encourage people to visit and explore the library, as well as educate a generation of young people and parents who may visit the library but have no idea of the treasures that it holds. The research explores how smartphone technology can be used to deliver an engaging and educational experience. The game aims to provide a fun and interactive way to guide participants through a multi-leveled library building, to search for unique QR codes to unlock clues, answer quiz questions and progress further up a leaderboard. This paper outlines the design and initial deployment of the game, reporting on results from a usability study and discussing initial observations made by librarians. Findings indicate that the mobile platform is suitable for delivering such experiences but consideration is needed when embedding games in such large environments so as not to confuse players as they play.

A gamified mobile application for engaging new students at university orientation

The term gamification describes the addition of game elements to non-game contexts as a means to motivate and engage users. This study investigates the design, delivery and pilot evaluation of a gamified, smartphone application built to introduce new students to the campus, services and people at university during their first few weeks. This paper describes changes to the application made after an initial field study was undertaken and provides an evaluation of the impact of the redesign. Survey responses were collected from thirteen students and usage data was captured from 105 students. Results indicate three levels of user engagement and suggest that there is value in adding game elements to the experience in this way. A number of issues are identified and discussed based on game challenges, input, and facilitating game elements in an event setting such as university orientation.

Ambient media for the third place in urban environments

As ambient computing blends into the fabric of the modern urban environment developing a positive interplay between people, places, and technology to create enlivened, interactive cities becomes a necessary priority in how we imagine, understand, design, and develop cities. Designing technology for art, culture and gastronomic experiences, that are rich in community, can provide the means for collaborative action to (re)create cities that are lively, engaging, and promote a sense of well being as well as belonging.

Food for thought : designing for critical reflection on food practices

This workshop is a continuation and extension to the successful past workshops including [4, 5, 6]. The workshop addresses the opportunities and challenges for the design of digital interactive systems that engage individuals in critical reflection on their everyday food practices - including designing for engagement in more environmentally aware, socially inclusive, and healthier behaviour. These three themes represent the focus of much recent HCI work related to food. The workshop aims to further the conversation on these themes through understanding specifically how the process of critical reflection can be encouraged by interactive technology. While the focus will be on food as an application area, the intention is to also explore, more generally, how the process of critical reflection can be facilitated through interactive technology. The workshop provides a unique forum to discuss existing theoretical and pragmatic approaches, and to envision novel ways to design technology that encourages sustained critical reflection.