Obtención y Uso de Patrones para la Implementación de Funcionalidades de Usabilidad en Aplicaciones Web

La usabilidad es un atributo de calidad de un sistema software que llega a ser crítico en sistemas altamente interactivos. Desde el campo de la Interacción Persona-Ordenador se proponen recomendaciones que permiten alcanzar un nivel adecuado de usabilidad en un sistema. En la disciplina de la Ingeniería de Software se ha establecido que algunas de estas recomendaciones afectan a la funcionalidad principal de los sistemas y no solo a la interfaz de usuario. Este tipo de recomendaciones de usabilidad se deben tener en cuenta desde las primeras actividades y durante todo el proceso de desarrollo, así como se hace con atributos tales como la seguridad, la facilidad de mantenimiento o el rendimiento. Desde la Ingeniería de Software se han hecho estudios y propuestas para abordar la usabilidad en las primeras actividades del desarrollo. En particular en la educción de requisitos y diseño de la arquitectura. Estas propuestas son de un alto nivel de abstracción. En esta investigación se aborda la usabilidad en actividades avanzadas del proceso de desarrollo: el diseño detallado y la programación. El objetivo de este trabajo es obtener, formalizar y validar soluciones reutilizables para la usabilidad en estas actividades. En este estudio se seleccionan tres funcionalidades de usabilidad identificadas como de alto impacto en el diseño: Abortar Operación, Retroalimentación de Progreso y Preferencias. Para la obtención de elementos reutilizables se utiliza un método inductivo. Se parte de la construcción de aplicaciones web particulares y se induce una solución general. Durante la construcción de las aplicaciones se mantiene la trazabilidad de los elementos relacionados con cada funcionalidad de usabilidad. Al finalizar se realiza un análisis de elementos comunes, y los hallazgos se formalizan como patrones de diseño orientados a la implementación y patrones de programación en cada uno de los lenguajes utilizados: PHP, VB .NET y Java. Las soluciones formalizadas como patrones se validan usando la metodología de estudio de casos. Desarrolladores independientes utilizan los patrones para la inclusión de las tres funcionalidades de usabilidad en dos nuevas aplicaciones web. Como resultado, los desarrolladores pueden usar con éxito las soluciones propuestas para dos de las funcionalidades: Abortar Operación y Preferencias. La funcionalidad Retroalimentación de Progreso no puede ser implementada completamente. Se concluye que es posible obtener elementos reutilizables para la implementación de cada funcionalidad de usabilidad. Estos elementos incluyen: escenarios de aplicación, que son la combinación de casuísticas que generan las funcionalidades de usabilidad, responsabilidades comunes necesarias para cubrir los escenarios, componentes comunes para cumplir con las responsabilidades, elementos de diseño asociados a los componentes y el código que implementa el diseño. Formalizar las soluciones como patrones resulta útil para comunicar los hallazgos a otros desarrolladores y los patrones se mejoran a través de su utilización en nuevos desarrollos. La implementación de funcionalidades de usabilidad presenta características que condicionan su reutilización, en particular, el nivel de acoplamiento de la funcionalidad de usabilidad con las funcionalidades de la aplicación, y la complejidad interna de la solución. ABSTRACT Usability is a critical quality attribute of highly interactive software systems. The humancomputer interaction field proposes recommendations for achieving an acceptable system usability level. The discipline of software engineering has established that some of these recommendations affect not only the user interface but also the core system functionality. This type of usability recommendations must be taken into account as of the early activities and throughout the software development process as in the case of attributes like security, ease of maintenance or performance. Software engineering has conducted studies and put forward proposals for tackling usability in the early development activities, particularly requirements elicitation and architecture design. These proposals have a high level of abstraction. This research addresses usability in later activities of the development process: detailed design and programming. The goal of this research is to discover, specify and validate reusable usability solutions for detailed design and programming. Abort Operation, Feedback and Preferences, three usability functionalities identified as having a high impact on design, are selected for the study. An inductive method, whereby a general solution is induced from particular web applications built for the purpose, is used to discover reusable elements. During the construction of the applications, the traceability of the elements related to each usability functionality is maintained. At the end of the process, the common and possibly reusable elements are analysed. The findings are specified as implementation-oriented design patterns and programming patterns for each of the languages used: PHP, VB .NET and Java. The solutions specified as patterns are validated using the case study methodology. Independent developers use the patterns in order to build the three usability functionalities into two new web applications. As a result, the developers successfully use the proposed solutions for two of the functionalities: Abort Operation and Preferences. The Progress Feedback functionality cannot be fully implemented. We conclude that it is possible to discover reusable elements for implementing each usability functionality. These elements include: application scenarios, which are combinations of cases that generate usability functionalities, common responsibilities to cover the scenarios, common components to fulfil the responsibilities, design elements associated with the components and code implementing the design. It is useful to specify solutions as patterns in order to communicate findings to other developers, and patterns improve through further use in other development projects. Reusability depends on the features of usability functionality implementation, particularly the level of coupling of the usability functionality with the application functionalities and the internal complexity of the solution.

Human-robot interaction for telemanipulation in large workspaces

Independientemente de la existencia de técnicas altamente sofisticadas y capacidades de cómputo cada vez más elevadas, los problemas asociados a los robots que interactúan con entornos no estructurados siguen siendo un desafío abierto en robótica. A pesar de los grandes avances de los sistemas robóticos autónomos, hay algunas situaciones en las que una persona en el bucle sigue siendo necesaria. Ejemplos de esto son, tareas en entornos de fusión nuclear, misiones espaciales, operaciones submarinas y cirugía robótica. Esta necesidad se debe a que las tecnologías actuales no pueden realizar de forma fiable y autónoma cualquier tipo de tarea. Esta tesis presenta métodos para la teleoperación de robots abarcando distintos niveles de abstracción que van desde el control supervisado, en el que un operador da instrucciones de alto nivel en la forma de acciones, hasta el control bilateral, donde los comandos toman la forma de señales de control de bajo nivel. En primer lugar, se presenta un enfoque para llevar a cabo la teleoperación supervisada de robots humanoides. El objetivo es controlar robots terrestres capaces de ejecutar tareas complejas en entornos de búsqueda y rescate utilizando enlaces de comunicación limitados. Esta propuesta incorpora comportamientos autónomos que el operador puede utilizar para realizar tareas de navegación y manipulación mientras se permite cubrir grandes áreas de entornos remotos diseñados para el acceso de personas. Los resultados experimentales demuestran la eficacia de los métodos propuestos. En segundo lugar, se investiga el uso de dispositivos rentables para telemanipulación guiada. Se presenta una aplicación que involucra un robot humanoide bimanual y un traje de captura de movimiento basado en sensores inerciales. En esta aplicación, se estudian las capacidades de adaptación introducidas por el factor humano y cómo estas pueden compensar la falta de sistemas robóticos de alta precisión. Este trabajo es el resultado de una colaboración entre investigadores del Biorobotics Laboratory de la Universidad de Harvard y el Centro de Automática y Robótica UPM-CSIC. En tercer lugar, se presenta un nuevo controlador háptico que combina velocidad y posición. Este controlador bilateral híbrido hace frente a los problemas relacionados con la teleoperación de un robot esclavo con un gran espacio de trabajo usando un dispositivo háptico pequeño como maestro. Se pueden cubrir amplias áreas de trabajo al cambiar automáticamente entre los modos de control de velocidad y posición. Este controlador háptico es ideal para sistemas maestro-esclavo con cinemáticas diferentes, donde los comandos se transmiten en el espacio de la tarea del entorno remoto. El método es validado para realizar telemanipulación hábil de objetos con un robot industrial. Por último, se introducen dos contribuciones en el campo de la manipulación robótica. Por un lado, se presenta un nuevo algoritmo de cinemática inversa, llamado método iterativo de desacoplamiento cinemático. Este método se ha desarrollado para resolver el problema cinemático inverso de un tipo de robot de seis grados de libertad donde una solución cerrada no está disponible. La eficacia del método se compara con métodos numéricos convencionales. Además, se ha diseñado una taxonomía robusta de agarres que permite controlar diferentes manos robóticas utilizando una correspondencia, basada en gestos, entre los espacios de trabajo de la mano humana y de la mano robótica. El gesto de la mano humana se identifica mediante la lectura de los movimientos relativos del índice, el pulgar y el dedo medio del usuario durante las primeras etapas del agarre. ABSTRACT Regardless of the availability of highly sophisticated techniques and ever increasing computing capabilities, the problems associated with robots interacting with unstructured environments remains an open challenge. Despite great advances in autonomous robotics, there are some situations where a humanin- the-loop is still required, such as, nuclear, space, subsea and robotic surgery operations. This is because the current technologies cannot reliably perform all kinds of task autonomously. This thesis presents methods for robot teleoperation strategies at different levels of abstraction ranging from supervisory control, where the operator gives high-level task actions, to bilateral teleoperation, where the commands take the form of low-level control inputs. These strategies contribute to improve the current human-robot interfaces specially in the case of slave robots deployed at large workspaces. First, an approach to perform supervisory teleoperation of humanoid robots is presented. The goal is to control ground robots capable of executing complex tasks in disaster relief environments under constrained communication links. This proposal incorporates autonomous behaviors that the operator can use to perform navigation and manipulation tasks which allow covering large human engineered areas of the remote environment. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods. Second, the use of cost-effective devices for guided telemanipulation is investigated. A case study involving a bimanual humanoid robot and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) Motion Capture (MoCap) suit is introduced. Herein, it is corroborated how the adaptation capabilities offered by the human-in-the-loop factor can compensate for the lack of high-precision robotic systems. This work is the result of collaboration between researchers from the Harvard Biorobotics Laboratory and the Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM-CSIC. Thirdly, a new haptic rate-position controller is presented. This hybrid bilateral controller copes with the problems related to the teleoperation of a slave robot with large workspace using a small haptic device as master. Large workspaces can be covered by automatically switching between rate and position control modes. This haptic controller is ideal to couple kinematic dissimilar master-slave systems where the commands are transmitted in the task space of the remote environment. The method is validated to perform dexterous telemanipulation of objects with a robotic manipulator. Finally, two contributions for robotic manipulation are introduced. First, a new algorithm, the Iterative Kinematic Decoupling method, is presented. It is a numeric method developed to solve the Inverse Kinematics (IK) problem of a type of six-DoF robotic arms where a close-form solution is not available. The effectiveness of this IK method is compared against conventional numerical methods. Second, a robust grasp mapping has been conceived. It allows to control a wide range of different robotic hands using a gesture based correspondence between the human hand space and the robotic hand space. The human hand gesture is identified by reading the relative movements of the index, thumb and middle fingers of the user during the early stages of grasping.

Co-creación de semiconductores

El mercado de los semiconductores está saturado de productos similares y de distribuidores con una propuesta de servicios similar. Los procesos de Co-Creación en los que el cliente colabora en la definición y desarrollo del producto y proporciona información sobre su utilidad, prestaciones y valor percibido, con el resultado de un producto que soluciona sus necesidades reales, se están convirtiendo en un paso adelante en la diferenciación y expansión de la cadena de valor. El proceso de diseño y fabricación de semiconductores es bastante complejo, requiere inversiones cada vez mayores y demanda soluciones completas. Se requiere un ecosistema que soporte el desarrollo de los equipos electrónicos basados en dichos semiconductores. La facilidad para el diálogo y compartir información que proporciona internet, las herramientas basadas en web 2.0 y los servicios y aplicaciones en la nube; favorecen la generación de ideas, el desarrollo y evaluación de productos y posibilita la interacción entre diversos co-creadores. Para iniciar un proceso de co-creación se requiere métodos y herramientas adecuados para interactuar con los participantes e intercambiar experiencias, procesos para integrar la co-creación dentro de la operativa de la empresa, y desarrollar una organización y cultura que soporten y fomenten dicho proceso. Entre los métodos más efectivos están la Netnografía que estudia las conversaciones de las comunidades en internet; colaboración con usuarios pioneros que van por delante del Mercado y esperan un gran beneficio de la satisfacción de sus necesidades o deseos; los estudios de innovación que permiten al usuario definir y a menudo crear su propia solución y la externalización a la multitud, que mediante una convocatoria abierta plantea a la comunidad retos a resolver a cambio de algún tipo de recompensa. La especialización de empresas subcontratistas en el desarrollo y fabricación de semiconductores; facilita la innovación abierta colaborando con diversas entidades en las diversas fases del desarrollo del semiconductor y su ecosistema. La co-creación se emplea actualmente en el sector de los semiconductores para detectar ideas de diseños y aplicaciones, a menudo mediante concursos de innovación. El servicio de soporte técnico y la evaluación de los semiconductores con frecuencia es fruto de la colaboración entre los miembros de la comunidad fomentada y soportada por los fabricantes del producto. Con el programa EBVchips se posibilita el acceso a empresas pequeñas y medianas a la co-creación de semiconductores con los fabricantes en un proceso coordinado y patrocinado por el distribuidor EBV. Los semiconductores configurables como las FPGAs constituyen otro ejemplo de co-creación mediante el cual el fabricante proporciona el circuito integrado y el entorno de desarrollo y los clientes crean el producto final definiendo sus características y funcionalidades. Este proceso se enriquece con bloques funcionales de diseño, IP-cores, que a menudo son creados por la comunidad de usuarios. ABSTRACT. The semiconductor market is saturated of similar products and distributors with a similar proposal for services. The processes of co-creation in which the customer collaborates in the definition and development of the product and provides information about its utility, performance and perceived value, resulting in a product that solves their real needs, are becoming a step forward in the differentiation and expansion of the value chain. The design and semiconductor manufacturing process is quite complex, requires increasingly higher investments and demands complete solutions. It requires an ecosystem that supports the development of electronic equipments based on such semiconductors. The ease of dialogue and sharing information that provides internet, web 2.0-based tools and services and applications in the cloud; favor the generation of ideas, the development and evaluation of products and allows the interaction between various co-creators. To start a process of co-creation adequate methods and tools are required to interact with the participants and exchange experiences, processes to integrate the co-creation within the operations of the company, and developing an organization and culture that support and promote such process. Among the most effective methods are the Netnography that studies the conversations of the communities on the internet; collaboration with Lead Users who are ahead of the market and expect a great benefit from the satisfaction of their needs or desires; Innovation studies that allow the user to define and often create their own solution and Crowdsourcing, an open call to the community to solve challenges in exchange for some kind of reward. The specialization of subcontractors in the development and manufacture of semiconductors; facilitates open innovation in the context of collaboration with different entities working in the different phases of the development of the semiconductor and its ecosystem. Co-creation is used currently in the semiconductor sector to detect ideas of designs and applications, often through innovation’s contests. Technical support and evaluation of semiconductors frequently is the result of collaboration between members of the community fostered and supported by the manufacturers of the product. The EBVchips program provides access to small and medium-sized companies to the co-creation of semiconductors with manufacturers in a process coordinated and sponsored by the Distributor EBV. Configurable semiconductors like FPGAs are another example of co-creation whereby the manufacturer provides the integrated circuit and the development environment and customers create the final product by defining their features and functionality. This process is enriched with IP-cores, designs blocks that are often created by the user community.

Modelo de arquitectura para gestión cooperativa de sistemas y servicios distribuidos basado en agentes autónomos

La creciente complejidad, heterogeneidad y dinamismo inherente a las redes de telecomunicaciones, los sistemas distribuidos y los servicios avanzados de información y comunicación emergentes, así como el incremento de su criticidad e importancia estratégica, requieren la adopción de tecnologías cada vez más sofisticadas para su gestión, su coordinación y su integración por parte de los operadores de red, los proveedores de servicio y las empresas, como usuarios finales de los mismos, con el fin de garantizar niveles adecuados de funcionalidad, rendimiento y fiabilidad. Las estrategias de gestión adoptadas tradicionalmente adolecen de seguir modelos excesivamente estáticos y centralizados, con un elevado componente de supervisión y difícilmente escalables. La acuciante necesidad por flexibilizar esta gestión y hacerla a la vez más escalable y robusta, ha provocado en los últimos años un considerable interés por desarrollar nuevos paradigmas basados en modelos jerárquicos y distribuidos, como evolución natural de los primeros modelos jerárquicos débilmente distribuidos que sucedieron al paradigma centralizado. Se crean así nuevos modelos como son los basados en Gestión por Delegación, en el paradigma de código móvil, en las tecnologías de objetos distribuidos y en los servicios web. Estas alternativas se han mostrado enormemente robustas, flexibles y escalables frente a las estrategias tradicionales de gestión, pero continúan sin resolver aún muchos problemas. Las líneas actuales de investigación parten del hecho de que muchos problemas de robustez, escalabilidad y flexibilidad continúan sin ser resueltos por el paradigma jerárquico-distribuido, y abogan por la migración hacia un paradigma cooperativo fuertemente distribuido. Estas líneas tienen su germen en la Inteligencia Artificial Distribuida (DAI) y, más concretamente, en el paradigma de agentes autónomos y en los Sistemas Multi-agente (MAS). Todas ellas se perfilan en torno a un conjunto de objetivos que pueden resumirse en alcanzar un mayor grado de autonomía en la funcionalidad de la gestión y una mayor capacidad de autoconfiguración que resuelva los problemas de escalabilidad y la necesidad de supervisión presentes en los sistemas actuales, evolucionar hacia técnicas de control fuertemente distribuido y cooperativo guiado por la meta y dotar de una mayor riqueza semántica a los modelos de información. Cada vez más investigadores están empezando a utilizar agentes para la gestión de redes y sistemas distribuidos. Sin embargo, los límites establecidos en sus trabajos entre agentes móviles (que siguen el paradigma de código móvil) y agentes autónomos (que realmente siguen el paradigma cooperativo) resultan difusos. Muchos de estos trabajos se centran en la utilización de agentes móviles, lo cual, al igual que ocurría con las técnicas de código móvil comentadas anteriormente, les permite dotar de un mayor componente dinámico al concepto tradicional de Gestión por Delegación. Con ello se consigue flexibilizar la gestión, distribuir la lógica de gestión cerca de los datos y distribuir el control. Sin embargo se permanece en el paradigma jerárquico distribuido. Si bien continúa sin definirse aún una arquitectura de gestión fiel al paradigma cooperativo fuertemente distribuido, estas líneas de investigación han puesto de manifiesto serios problemas de adecuación en los modelos de información, comunicación y organizativo de las arquitecturas de gestión existentes. En este contexto, la tesis presenta un modelo de arquitectura para gestión holónica de sistemas y servicios distribuidos mediante sociedades de agentes autónomos, cuyos objetivos fundamentales son el incremento del grado de automatización asociado a las tareas de gestión, el aumento de la escalabilidad de las soluciones de gestión, soporte para delegación tanto por dominios como por macro-tareas, y un alto grado de interoperabilidad en entornos abiertos. A partir de estos objetivos se ha desarrollado un modelo de información formal de tipo semántico, basado en lógica descriptiva que permite un mayor grado de automatización en la gestión en base a la utilización de agentes autónomos racionales, capaces de razonar, inferir e integrar de forma dinámica conocimiento y servicios conceptualizados mediante el modelo CIM y formalizados a nivel semántico mediante lógica descriptiva. El modelo de información incluye además un “mapping” a nivel de meta-modelo de CIM al lenguaje de especificación de ontologías OWL, que supone un significativo avance en el área de la representación y el intercambio basado en XML de modelos y meta-información. A nivel de interacción, el modelo aporta un lenguaje de especificación formal de conversaciones entre agentes basado en la teoría de actos ilocucionales y aporta una semántica operacional para dicho lenguaje que facilita la labor de verificación de propiedades formales asociadas al protocolo de interacción. Se ha desarrollado también un modelo de organización holónico y orientado a roles cuyas principales características están alineadas con las demandadas por los servicios distribuidos emergentes e incluyen la ausencia de control central, capacidades de reestructuración dinámica, capacidades de cooperación, y facilidades de adaptación a diferentes culturas organizativas. El modelo incluye un submodelo normativo adecuado al carácter autónomo de los holones de gestión y basado en las lógicas modales deontológica y de acción.---ABSTRACT---The growing complexity, heterogeneity and dynamism inherent in telecommunications networks, distributed systems and the emerging advanced information and communication services, as well as their increased criticality and strategic importance, calls for the adoption of increasingly more sophisticated technologies for their management, coordination and integration by network operators, service providers and end-user companies to assure adequate levels of functionality, performance and reliability. The management strategies adopted traditionally follow models that are too static and centralised, have a high supervision component and are difficult to scale. The pressing need to flexibilise management and, at the same time, make it more scalable and robust recently led to a lot of interest in developing new paradigms based on hierarchical and distributed models, as a natural evolution from the first weakly distributed hierarchical models that succeeded the centralised paradigm. Thus new models based on management by delegation, the mobile code paradigm, distributed objects and web services came into being. These alternatives have turned out to be enormously robust, flexible and scalable as compared with the traditional management strategies. However, many problems still remain to be solved. Current research lines assume that the distributed hierarchical paradigm has as yet failed to solve many of the problems related to robustness, scalability and flexibility and advocate migration towards a strongly distributed cooperative paradigm. These lines of research were spawned by Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) and, specifically, the autonomous agent paradigm and Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). They all revolve around a series of objectives, which can be summarised as achieving greater management functionality autonomy and a greater self-configuration capability, which solves the problems of scalability and the need for supervision that plague current systems, evolving towards strongly distributed and goal-driven cooperative control techniques and semantically enhancing information models. More and more researchers are starting to use agents for network and distributed systems management. However, the boundaries established in their work between mobile agents (that follow the mobile code paradigm) and autonomous agents (that really follow the cooperative paradigm) are fuzzy. Many of these approximations focus on the use of mobile agents, which, as was the case with the above-mentioned mobile code techniques, means that they can inject more dynamism into the traditional concept of management by delegation. Accordingly, they are able to flexibilise management, distribute management logic about data and distribute control. However, they remain within the distributed hierarchical paradigm. While a management architecture faithful to the strongly distributed cooperative paradigm has yet to be defined, these lines of research have revealed that the information, communication and organisation models of existing management architectures are far from adequate. In this context, this dissertation presents an architectural model for the holonic management of distributed systems and services through autonomous agent societies. The main objectives of this model are to raise the level of management task automation, increase the scalability of management solutions, provide support for delegation by both domains and macro-tasks and achieve a high level of interoperability in open environments. Bearing in mind these objectives, a descriptive logic-based formal semantic information model has been developed, which increases management automation by using rational autonomous agents capable of reasoning, inferring and dynamically integrating knowledge and services conceptualised by means of the CIM model and formalised at the semantic level by means of descriptive logic. The information model also includes a mapping, at the CIM metamodel level, to the OWL ontology specification language, which amounts to a significant advance in the field of XML-based model and metainformation representation and exchange. At the interaction level, the model introduces a formal specification language (ACSL) of conversations between agents based on speech act theory and contributes an operational semantics for this language that eases the task of verifying formal properties associated with the interaction protocol. A role-oriented holonic organisational model has also been developed, whose main features meet the requirements demanded by emerging distributed services, including no centralised control, dynamic restructuring capabilities, cooperative skills and facilities for adaptation to different organisational cultures. The model includes a normative submodel adapted to management holon autonomy and based on the deontic and action modal logics.

Context modelling for natural Human Computer Interaction applications in e-health

The conception of IoT (Internet of Things) is accepted as the future tendency of Internet among academia and industry. It will enable people and things to be connected at anytime and anyplace, with anything and anyone. IoT has been proposed to be applied into many areas such as Healthcare, Transportation，Logistics, and Smart environment etc. However, this thesis emphasizes on the home healthcare area as it is the potential healthcare model to solve many problems such as the limited medical resources, the increasing demands for healthcare from elderly and chronic patients which the traditional model is not capable of. A remarkable change in IoT in semantic oriented vision is that vast sensors or devices are involved which could generate enormous data. Methods to manage the data including acquiring, interpreting, processing and storing data need to be implemented. Apart from this, other abilities that IoT is not capable of are concluded, namely, interoperation, context awareness and security & privacy. Context awareness is an emerging technology to manage and take advantage of context to enable any type of system to provide personalized services. The aim of this thesis is to explore ways to facilitate context awareness in IoT. In order to realize this objective, a preliminary research is carried out in this thesis. The most basic premise to realize context awareness is to collect, model, understand, reason and make use of context. A complete literature review for the existing context modelling and context reasoning techniques is conducted. The conclusion is that the ontology-based context modelling and ontology-based context reasoning are the most promising and efficient techniques to manage context. In order to fuse ontology into IoT, a specific ontology-based context awareness framework is proposed for IoT applications. In general, the framework is composed of eight components which are hardware, UI (User Interface), Context modelling, Context fusion, Context reasoning, Context repository, Security unit and Context dissemination. Moreover, on the basis of TOVE (Toronto Virtual Enterprise), a formal ontology developing methodology is proposed and illustrated which consists of four stages: Specification & Conceptualization, Competency Formulation, Implementation and Validation & Documentation. In addition, a home healthcare scenario is elaborated by listing its well-defined functionalities. Aiming at representing this specific scenario, the proposed ontology developing methodology is applied and the ontology-based model is developed in a free and open-source ontology editor called Protégé. Finally, the accuracy and completeness of the proposed ontology are validated to show that this proposed ontology is able to accurately represent the scenario of interest.

Definición, diseño e implementación de métricas de usuario final sobre componentes web en el lado Front-end, mediante Google Analytics

La web ha evolucionado hacia la participación en la creación de contenido tanto por desarrolladores expertos como por usuarios finales sin un gran conocimiento en esta área. A pesar de que su uso es igual de válido y funcional, las diferencias entre la calidad de los productos desarrollados por ambos puede llegar a ser considerable. Esta característica se observa con mayor claridad cuando se analizan los web components. El trabajo consiste en el desarrollo de un entorno capaz de recoger las métricas de calidad de los componentes, basadas en la interacción con ellos por parte de los usuarios. A partir de las métricas obtenidas, se determinará su calidad para realizar una mejora de la misma, en función de las características valoradas. La selección de las métricas se realiza mediante un estudio de las características que definen a un componente, y permiten ser analizadas. Para poder llevar a cabo la construcción del portal, se ha descrito un prototipo capaz de proporcionar un sistema para permitir que los componentes intercambien información entre ellos. El modelo ha sido integrado en los componentes que se han de evaluar para obtener nuevas métricas sobre esta característica. Se ha desarrollado un dashboard que permite la interacción sin limitaciones de los usuarios con los componentes, facilitándoles un sistema para conectar componentes, utilizando para ello el sistema previamente descrito. Como conclusión del trabajo, se puede observar la necesidad de integrar los componentes web en un entorno real para poder determinar su calidad. Debido a que la calidad está determinada por los usuarios que consumen los componentes, se ha de contar con su opinión en la cuantificación de la misma.---ABSTRACT---Recently, the web has evolved to the collaboration between professional developers and end users with limited knowledge to create web content. Although both solutions are correct and functional, the differences in the quality between them can be appreciable. This feature is shown clearly when the web components are analyzed. The work is composed of the development of a virtual environment which is able to pick the quality measures of the components, based on the interaction between these components and the user. The measures are the starting point to decide the quality, and improve them with the rated measures. The measures selection is done through a study of the main features of a component. This selection can be analyzed. In order to create the website, a prototype has been specified to provide a system in which the components can be trade information between them. The interconnection model has been integrated in the components to evaluate. A dashboard has been developed to allow users interacting with the components without rules, making them possible connecting components through the model. The main conclusion of the work is the necessity of integrating web components in a real environment to decide their quality. Due to the fact that the quality is measured in terms of the rate of the users, it is a must to give them the main roles in the establishment of that quality.

Non-invasive user monitoring in daily tasks for cognitive rehabilitation

El uso de técnicas para la monitorización del movimiento humano generalmente permite a los investigadores analizar la cinemática y especialmente las capacidades motoras en aquellas actividades de la vida cotidiana que persiguen un objetivo concreto como pueden ser la preparación de bebidas y comida, e incluso en tareas de aseo. Adicionalmente, la evaluación del movimiento y el comportamiento humanos en el campo de la rehabilitación cognitiva es esencial para profundizar en las dificultades que algunas personas encuentran en la ejecución de actividades diarias después de accidentes cerebro-vasculares. Estas dificultades están principalmente asociadas a la realización de pasos secuenciales y al reconocimiento del uso de herramientas y objetos. La interpretación de los datos sobre la actitud de este tipo de pacientes para reconocer y determinar el nivel de éxito en la ejecución de las acciones, y para ampliar el conocimiento en las enfermedades cerebrales, sus consecuencias y severidad, depende totalmente de los dispositivos usados para la captura de esos datos y de la calidad de los mismos. Más aún, existe una necesidad real de mejorar las técnicas actuales de rehabilitación cognitiva contribuyendo al diseño de sistemas automáticos para crear una especie de terapeuta virtual que asegure una vida más independiente de estos pacientes y reduzca la carga de trabajo de los terapeutas. Con este objetivo, el uso de sensores y dispositivos para obtener datos en tiempo real de la ejecución y estado de la tarea de rehabilitación es esencial para también contribuir al diseño y entrenamiento de futuros algoritmos que pudieran reconocer errores automáticamente para informar al paciente acerca de ellos mediante distintos tipos de pistas como pueden ser imágenes, mensajes auditivos o incluso videos. La tecnología y soluciones existentes en este campo no ofrecen una manera totalmente robusta y efectiva para obtener datos en tiempo real, por un lado, porque pueden influir en el movimiento del propio paciente en caso de las plataformas basadas en el uso de marcadores que necesitan sensores pegados en la piel; y por otro lado, debido a la complejidad o alto coste de implantación lo que hace difícil pensar en la idea de instalar un sistema en el hospital o incluso en la casa del paciente. Esta tesis presenta la investigación realizada en el campo de la monitorización del movimiento de pacientes para proporcionar un paso adelante en términos de detección, seguimiento y reconocimiento del comportamiento de manos, gestos y cara mediante una manera no invasiva la cual puede mejorar la técnicas actuales de rehabilitación cognitiva para la adquisición en tiempo real de datos sobre el comportamiento del paciente y la ejecución de la tarea. Para entender la importancia del marco de esta tesis, inicialmente se presenta un resumen de las principales enfermedades cognitivas y se introducen las consecuencias que tienen en la ejecución de tareas de la vida diaria. Más aún, se investiga sobre las metodologías actuales de rehabilitación cognitiva. Teniendo en cuenta que las manos son la principal parte del cuerpo para la ejecución de tareas manuales de la vida cotidiana, también se resumen las tecnologías existentes para la captura de movimiento de manos. Una de las principales contribuciones de esta tesis está relacionada con el diseño y evaluación de una solución no invasiva para detectar y seguir las manos durante la ejecución de tareas manuales de la vida cotidiana que a su vez involucran la manipulación de objetos. Esta solución la cual no necesita marcadores adicionales y está basada en una cámara de profundidad de bajo coste, es robusta, precisa y fácil de instalar. Otra contribución presentada se centra en el reconocimiento de gestos para detectar el agarre de objetos basado en un sensor infrarrojo de última generación, y también complementado con una cámara de profundidad. Esta nueva técnica, y también no invasiva, sincroniza ambos sensores para seguir objetos específicos además de reconocer eventos concretos relacionados con tareas de aseo. Más aún, se realiza una evaluación preliminar del reconocimiento de expresiones faciales para analizar si es adecuado para el reconocimiento del estado de ánimo durante la tarea. Por su parte, todos los componentes y algoritmos desarrollados son integrados en un prototipo simple para ser usado como plataforma de monitorización. Se realiza una evaluación técnica del funcionamiento de cada dispositivo para analizar si es adecuada para adquirir datos en tiempo real durante la ejecución de tareas cotidianas reales. Finalmente, se estudia la interacción con pacientes reales para obtener información del nivel de usabilidad del prototipo. Dicha información es esencial y útil para considerar una rehabilitación cognitiva basada en la idea de instalación del sistema en la propia casa del paciente al igual que en el hospital correspondiente. ABSTRACT The use of human motion monitoring techniques usually let researchers to analyse kinematics, especially in motor strategies for goal-oriented activities of daily living, such as the preparation of drinks and food, and even grooming tasks. Additionally, the evaluation of human movements and behaviour in the field of cognitive rehabilitation is essential to deep into the difficulties some people find in common activities after stroke. This difficulties are mainly associated with sequence actions and the recognition of tools usage. The interpretation of attitude data of this kind of patients in order to recognize and determine the level of success of the execution of actions, and to broaden the knowledge in brain diseases, consequences and severity, depends totally on the devices used for the capture of that data and the quality of it. Moreover, there is a real need of improving the current cognitive rehabilitation techniques by contributing to the design of automatic systems to create a kind of virtual therapist for the improvement of the independent life of these stroke patients and to reduce the workload of the occupational therapists currently in charge of them. For this purpose, the use of sensors and devices to obtain real time data of the execution and state of the rehabilitation task is essential to also contribute to the design and training of future smart algorithms which may recognise errors to automatically provide multimodal feedback through different types of cues such as still images, auditory messages or even videos. The technology and solutions currently adopted in the field don't offer a totally robust and effective way for obtaining real time data, on the one hand, because they may influence the patient's movement in case of marker-based platforms which need sensors attached to the skin; and on the other hand, because of the complexity or high cost of implementation, which make difficult the idea of installing a system at the hospital or even patient's home. This thesis presents the research done in the field of user monitoring to provide a step forward in terms of detection, tracking and recognition of hand movements, gestures and face via a non-invasive way which could improve current techniques for cognitive rehabilitation for real time data acquisition of patient's behaviour and execution of the task. In order to understand the importance of the scope of the thesis, initially, a summary of the main cognitive diseases that require for rehabilitation and an introduction of the consequences on the execution of daily tasks are presented. Moreover, research is done about the actual methodology to provide cognitive rehabilitation. Considering that the main body members involved in the completion of a handmade daily task are the hands, the current technologies for human hands movements capture are also highlighted. One of the main contributions of this thesis is related to the design and evaluation of a non-invasive approach to detect and track user's hands during the execution of handmade activities of daily living which involve the manipulation of objects. This approach does not need the inclusion of any additional markers. In addition, it is only based on a low-cost depth camera, it is robust, accurate and easy to install. Another contribution presented is focused on the hand gesture recognition for detecting object grasping based on a brand new infrared sensor, and also complemented with a depth camera. This new, and also non-invasive, solution which synchronizes both sensors to track specific tools as well as recognize specific events related to grooming is evaluated. Moreover, a preliminary assessment of the recognition of facial expressions is carried out to analyse if it is adequate for recognizing mood during the execution of task. Meanwhile, all the corresponding hardware and software developed are integrated in a simple prototype with the purpose of being used as a platform for monitoring the execution of the rehabilitation task. Technical evaluation of the performance of each device is carried out in order to analyze its suitability to acquire real time data during the execution of real daily tasks. Finally, a kind of healthcare evaluation is also presented to obtain feedback about the usability of the system proposed paying special attention to the interaction with real users and stroke patients. This feedback is quite useful to consider the idea of a home-based cognitive rehabilitation as well as a possible hospital installation of the prototype.

Evaluación de patrones de programación de usabilidad para tres casos de estudio

La calidad es uno de los principales retos de la construcción de software. En la Ingeniería del Software (IS) se considera a la usabilidad como un atributo de calidad. Al principio se veía a la usabilidad como un requisito no funcional.Se asumía que la usabilidad era una propiedad exclusiva de la presentación de la información.Se creía que separando la capa de presentación del resto, se podía desarrollar un producto software usable.Debido a la naturaleza del sistema y a las necesidades del usuario, a menudo se debe ir más lejos y no basta con tener en cuenta la presentación para obtener un software usable. La comunidad de la Interacción Personar Ordenador (IPO) ha propuesto recomendaciones para mejorar la usabilidad. Algunas de esas recomendaciones tienen impacto directo en la funcionalidad del producto software. En estudios recientes también se ha evaluado la relación entre la usabilidad y los requisitos funcionales. Estas investigaciones sugieren que la usabilidad debe ser tenida en cuenta desde las etapas iniciales de la construcción para evitar costosos cambios posteriores. La incorporación de las características de usabilidad agrega cierta complejidad al proceso de desarrollo. El presente trabajo evalúa la posibilidad de usar patrones para la incorporación de usabilidad en el desarrollo de un producto software. Concretamente se evalúan los siguientes patrones de programación de usabilidad (PPUs): Abort Operation,Progress Feedback y Preferences. Se utilizan unas Pautas de Desarrollo de Mecanismos de Usabilidad(PDMUs) para estos tres mecanismos de usabilidad. Estas pautas poponen patrones para la educción y posterior incorporación de la usabilidad en las distintas fases de la programación. En esta investigación se aborda el desarrollo de un producto software desde la deducción de requisitos hasta la implementación. En cada fase se incorporan los mecanismos de usabilidad de acuerdo a las recomendaciones de las PDMUs. Mediante el desarrollo de un software real se ha evaluado la factibilidad del uso de las PDMUs obteniendo como resultado propuestas de mejoras en estas pautas. Se evalúa asimismo el esfuerzo de incorporación de los mecanismos de usabilidad. Cada evaluación aporta datos que proporcionan una estimación del esfuerzo adicional requerido para incorporar cada mecanismo de usabilidad en el proceso de desarrollo del software.---ABSTRACT---Quality is a major challenge in software construction. Software engineers consider usability to be a quality attribute. Originally, usability was viewed as a nonr functional requirement. Usability was assumed to be simply an information presentation property. There was a belief that a usable software product could be developed by separating the presentation layer from the rest of the system. Depending on the system type and user needs, however, usability often runs deeper, and it is not enough to consider just presentation to build usable software. The humanrcomputer interaction (HCI) community put forward a list of recommendations to improve usability. Some such recommendations have a direct impact on software product functionality. Recent studies have also evaluated the relationship between usability and functional requirements. This research suggests that usability should be taken into account as of the early stages of software construction to prevent costly rework later on. The inclusion of usability features is an added complication to the development process. The research reported here evaluates the possibility of using patterns to incorporate usability into a software product. Specifically, it evaluates the following usability programming patterns (UPPs): Abort Operation, Progress Feedback and Preferences. Usability Mechanism Development Guides (USDG) are applied to these three usability mechanisms. These guides propose patterns for eliciting and later incorporating usability into the different software development phases, including programming. The reported research addresses the development of a software product from requirements elicitation through to implementation. Usability mechanisms are incorporated into each development phase in accordance with USDG recommendations. A real piece of software was developed to test the feasibility of using USDGs, outputting proposals for improving the guides. Each evaluation yields data providing an estimate of the additional workload required to incorporate each usability mechanism into the software development process.

Especificaciones eMathTeacher, creación del Modelo Granular Lingüístico de la evaluación del aprendizaje humano, y diseño de sistemas que implementan estos conceptos

El concepto de algoritmo es básico en informática, por lo que es crucial que los alumnos profundicen en él desde el inicio de su formación. Por tanto, contar con una herramienta que guíe a los estudiantes en su aprendizaje puede suponer una gran ayuda en su formación. La mayoría de los autores coinciden en que, para determinar la eficacia de una herramienta de visualización de algoritmos, es esencial cómo se utiliza. Así, los estudiantes que participan activamente en la visualización superan claramente a los que la contemplan de forma pasiva. Por ello, pensamos que uno de los mejores ejercicios para un alumno consiste en simular la ejecución del algoritmo que desea aprender mediante el uso de una herramienta de visualización, i. e. consiste en realizar una simulación visual de dicho algoritmo. La primera parte de esta tesis presenta los resultados de una profunda investigación sobre las características que debe reunir una herramienta de ayuda al aprendizaje de algoritmos y conceptos matemáticos para optimizar su efectividad: el conjunto de especificaciones eMathTeacher, además de un entorno de aprendizaje que integra herramientas que las cumplen: GRAPHs. Hemos estudiado cuáles son las cualidades esenciales para potenciar la eficacia de un sistema e-learning de este tipo. Esto nos ha llevado a la definición del concepto eMathTeacher, que se ha materializado en el conjunto de especificaciones eMathTeacher. Una herramienta e-learning cumple las especificaciones eMathTeacher si actúa como un profesor virtual de matemáticas, i. e. si es una herramienta de autoevaluación que ayuda a los alumnos a aprender de forma activa y autónoma conceptos o algoritmos matemáticos, corrigiendo sus errores y proporcionando pistas para encontrar la respuesta correcta, pero sin dársela explícitamente. En estas herramientas, la simulación del algoritmo no continúa hasta que el usuario introduce la respuesta correcta. Para poder reunir en un único entorno una colección de herramientas que cumplan las especificaciones eMathTeacher hemos creado GRAPHs, un entorno ampliable, basado en simulación visual, diseñado para el aprendizaje activo e independiente de los algoritmos de grafos y creado para que en él se integren simuladores de diferentes algoritmos. Además de las opciones de creación y edición del grafo y la visualización de los cambios producidos en él durante la simulación, el entorno incluye corrección paso a paso, animación del pseudocódigo del algoritmo, preguntas emergentes, manejo de las estructuras de datos del algoritmo y creación de un log de interacción en XML. Otro problema que nos planteamos en este trabajo, por su importancia en el proceso de aprendizaje, es el de la evaluación formativa. El uso de ciertos entornos e-learning genera gran cantidad de datos que deben ser interpretados para llegar a una evaluación que no se limite a un recuento de errores. Esto incluye el establecimiento de relaciones entre los datos disponibles y la generación de descripciones lingüísticas que informen al alumno sobre la evolución de su aprendizaje. Hasta ahora sólo un experto humano era capaz de hacer este tipo de evaluación. Nuestro objetivo ha sido crear un modelo computacional que simule el razonamiento del profesor y genere un informe sobre la evolución del aprendizaje que especifique el nivel de logro de cada uno de los objetivos definidos por el profesor. Como resultado del trabajo realizado, la segunda parte de esta tesis presenta el modelo granular lingüístico de la evaluación del aprendizaje, capaz de modelizar la evaluación y generar automáticamente informes de evaluación formativa. Este modelo es una particularización del modelo granular lingüístico de un fenómeno (GLMP), en cuyo desarrollo y formalización colaboramos, basado en la lógica borrosa y en la teoría computacional de las percepciones. Esta técnica, que utiliza sistemas de inferencia basados en reglas lingüísticas y es capaz de implementar criterios de evaluación complejos, se ha aplicado a dos casos: la evaluación, basada en criterios, de logs de interacción generados por GRAPHs y de cuestionarios de Moodle. Como consecuencia, se han implementado, probado y utilizado en el aula sistemas expertos que evalúan ambos tipos de ejercicios. Además de la calificación numérica, los sistemas generan informes de evaluación, en lenguaje natural, sobre los niveles de competencia alcanzados, usando sólo datos objetivos de respuestas correctas e incorrectas. Además, se han desarrollado dos aplicaciones capaces de ser configuradas para implementar los sistemas expertos mencionados. Una procesa los archivos producidos por GRAPHs y la otra, integrable en Moodle, evalúa basándose en los resultados de los cuestionarios. ABSTRACT The concept of algorithm is one of the core subjects in computer science. It is extremely important, then, for students to get a good grasp of this concept from the very start of their training. In this respect, having a tool that helps and shepherds students through the process of learning this concept can make a huge difference to their instruction. Much has been written about how helpful algorithm visualization tools can be. Most authors agree that the most important part of the learning process is how students use the visualization tool. Learners who are actively involved in visualization consistently outperform other learners who view the algorithms passively. Therefore we think that one of the best exercises to learn an algorithm is for the user to simulate the algorithm execution while using a visualization tool, thus performing a visual algorithm simulation. The first part of this thesis presents the eMathTeacher set of requirements together with an eMathTeacher-compliant tool called GRAPHs. For some years, we have been developing a theory about what the key features of an effective e-learning system for teaching mathematical concepts and algorithms are. This led to the definition of eMathTeacher concept, which has materialized in the eMathTeacher set of requirements. An e-learning tool is eMathTeacher compliant if it works as a virtual math trainer. In other words, it has to be an on-line self-assessment tool that helps students to actively and autonomously learn math concepts or algorithms, correcting their mistakes and providing them with clues to find the right answer. In an eMathTeacher-compliant tool, algorithm simulation does not continue until the user enters the correct answer. GRAPHs is an extendible environment designed for active and independent visual simulation-based learning of graph algorithms, set up to integrate tools to help the user simulate the execution of different algorithms. Apart from the options of creating and editing the graph, and visualizing the changes made to the graph during simulation, the environment also includes step-by-step correction, algorithm pseudo-code animation, pop-up questions, data structure handling and XML-based interaction log creation features. On the other hand, assessment is a key part of any learning process. Through the use of e-learning environments huge amounts of data can be output about this process. Nevertheless, this information has to be interpreted and represented in a practical way to arrive at a sound assessment that is not confined to merely counting mistakes. This includes establishing relationships between the available data and also providing instructive linguistic descriptions about learning evolution. Additionally, formative assessment should specify the level of attainment of the learning goals defined by the instructor. Till now, only human experts were capable of making such assessments. While facing this problem, our goal has been to create a computational model that simulates the instructor’s reasoning and generates an enlightening learning evolution report in natural language. The second part of this thesis presents the granular linguistic model of learning assessment to model the assessment of the learning process and implement the automated generation of a formative assessment report. The model is a particularization of the granular linguistic model of a phenomenon (GLMP) paradigm, based on fuzzy logic and the computational theory of perceptions, to the assessment phenomenon. This technique, useful for implementing complex assessment criteria using inference systems based on linguistic rules, has been applied to two particular cases: the assessment of the interaction logs generated by GRAPHs and the criterion-based assessment of Moodle quizzes. As a consequence, several expert systems to assess different algorithm simulations and Moodle quizzes have been implemented, tested and used in the classroom. Apart from the grade, the designed expert systems also generate natural language progress reports on the achieved proficiency level, based exclusively on the objective data gathered from correct and incorrect responses. In addition, two applications, capable of being configured to implement the expert systems, have been developed. One is geared up to process the files output by GRAPHs and the other one is a Moodle plug-in set up to perform the assessment based on the quizzes results.

Co-simulation Methodologies for Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Dynamics

In recent decades, full electric and hybrid electric vehicles have emerged as an alternative to conventional cars due to a range of factors, including environmental and economic aspects. These vehicles are the result of considerable efforts to seek ways of reducing the use of fossil fuel for vehicle propulsion. Sophisticated technologies such as hybrid and electric powertrains require careful study and optimization. Mathematical models play a key role at this point. Currently, many advanced mathematical analysis tools, as well as computer applications have been built for vehicle simulation purposes. Given the great interest of hybrid and electric powertrains, along with the increasing importance of reliable computer-based models, the author decided to integrate both aspects in the research purpose of this work. Furthermore, this is one of the first final degree projects held at the ETSII (Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineers) that covers the study of hybrid and electric propulsion systems. The present project is based on MBS3D 2.0, a specialized software for the dynamic simulation of multibody systems developed at the UPM Institute of Automobile Research (INSIA). Automobiles are a clear example of complex multibody systems, which are present in nearly every field of engineering. The work presented here benefits from the availability of MBS3D software. This program has proven to be a very efficient tool, with a highly developed underlying mathematical formulation. On this basis, the focus of this project is the extension of MBS3D features in order to be able to perform dynamic simulations of hybrid and electric vehicle models. This requires the joint simulation of the mechanical model of the vehicle, together with the model of the hybrid or electric powertrain. These sub-models belong to completely different physical domains. In fact the powertrain consists of energy storage systems, electrical machines and power electronics, connected to purely mechanical components (wheels, suspension, transmission, clutch…). The challenge today is to create a global vehicle model that is valid for computer simulation. Therefore, the main goal of this project is to apply co-simulation methodologies to a comprehensive model of an electric vehicle, where sub-models from different areas of engineering are coupled. The created electric vehicle (EV) model consists of a separately excited DC electric motor, a Li-ion battery pack, a DC/DC chopper converter and a multibody vehicle model. Co-simulation techniques allow car designers to simulate complex vehicle architectures and behaviors, which are usually difficult to implement in a real environment due to safety and/or economic reasons. In addition, multi-domain computational models help to detect the effects of different driving patterns and parameters and improve the models in a fast and effective way. Automotive designers can greatly benefit from a multidisciplinary approach of new hybrid and electric vehicles. In this case, the global electric vehicle model includes an electrical subsystem and a mechanical subsystem. The electrical subsystem consists of three basic components: electric motor, battery pack and power converter. A modular representation is used for building the dynamic model of the vehicle drivetrain. This means that every component of the drivetrain (submodule) is modeled separately and has its own general dynamic model, with clearly defined inputs and outputs. Then, all the particular submodules are assembled according to the drivetrain configuration and, in this way, the power flow across the components is completely determined. Dynamic models of electrical components are often based on equivalent circuits, where Kirchhoff’s voltage and current laws are applied to draw the algebraic and differential equations. Here, Randles circuit is used for dynamic modeling of the battery and the electric motor is modeled through the analysis of the equivalent circuit of a separately excited DC motor, where the power converter is included. The mechanical subsystem is defined by MBS3D equations. These equations consider the position, velocity and acceleration of all the bodies comprising the vehicle multibody system. MBS3D 2.0 is entirely written in MATLAB and the structure of the program has been thoroughly studied and understood by the author. MBS3D software is adapted according to the requirements of the applied co-simulation method. Some of the core functions are modified, such as integrator and graphics, and several auxiliary functions are added in order to compute the mathematical model of the electrical components. By coupling and co-simulating both subsystems, it is possible to evaluate the dynamic interaction among all the components of the drivetrain. ‘Tight-coupling’ method is used to cosimulate the sub-models. This approach integrates all subsystems simultaneously and the results of the integration are exchanged by function-call. This means that the integration is done jointly for the mechanical and the electrical subsystem, under a single integrator and then, the speed of integration is determined by the slower subsystem. Simulations are then used to show the performance of the developed EV model. However, this project focuses more on the validation of the computational and mathematical tool for electric and hybrid vehicle simulation. For this purpose, a detailed study and comparison of different integrators within the MATLAB environment is done. Consequently, the main efforts are directed towards the implementation of co-simulation techniques in MBS3D software. In this regard, it is not intended to create an extremely precise EV model in terms of real vehicle performance, although an acceptable level of accuracy is achieved. The gap between the EV model and the real system is filled, in a way, by introducing the gas and brake pedals input, which reflects the actual driver behavior. This input is included directly in the differential equations of the model, and determines the amount of current provided to the electric motor. For a separately excited DC motor, the rotor current is proportional to the traction torque delivered to the car wheels. Therefore, as it occurs in the case of real vehicle models, the propulsion torque in the mathematical model is controlled through acceleration and brake pedal commands. The designed transmission system also includes a reduction gear that adapts the torque coming for the motor drive and transfers it. The main contribution of this project is, therefore, the implementation of a new calculation path for the wheel torques, based on performance characteristics and outputs of the electric powertrain model. Originally, the wheel traction and braking torques were input to MBS3D through a vector directly computed by the user in a MATLAB script. Now, they are calculated as a function of the motor current which, in turn, depends on the current provided by the battery pack across the DC/DC chopper converter. The motor and battery currents and voltages are the solutions of the electrical ODE (Ordinary Differential Equation) system coupled to the multibody system. Simultaneously, the outputs of MBS3D model are the position, velocity and acceleration of the vehicle at all times. The motor shaft speed is computed from the output vehicle speed considering the wheel radius, the gear reduction ratio and the transmission efficiency. This motor shaft speed, somehow available from MBS3D model, is then introduced in the differential equations corresponding to the electrical subsystem. In this way, MBS3D and the electrical powertrain model are interconnected and both subsystems exchange values resulting as expected with tight-coupling approach.When programming mathematical models of complex systems, code optimization is a key step in the process. A way to improve the overall performance of the integration, making use of C/C++ as an alternative programming language, is described and implemented. Although this entails a higher computational burden, it leads to important advantages regarding cosimulation speed and stability. In order to do this, it is necessary to integrate MATLAB with another integrated development environment (IDE), where C/C++ code can be generated and executed. In this project, C/C++ files are programmed in Microsoft Visual Studio and the interface between both IDEs is created by building C/C++ MEX file functions. These programs contain functions or subroutines that can be dynamically linked and executed from MATLAB. This process achieves reductions in simulation time up to two orders of magnitude. The tests performed with different integrators, also reveal the stiff character of the differential equations corresponding to the electrical subsystem, and allow the improvement of the cosimulation process. When varying the parameters of the integration and/or the initial conditions of the problem, the solutions of the system of equations show better dynamic response and stability, depending on the integrator used. Several integrators, with variable and non-variable step-size, and for stiff and non-stiff problems are applied to the coupled ODE system. Then, the results are analyzed, compared and discussed. From all the above, the project can be divided into four main parts: 1. Creation of the equation-based electric vehicle model; 2. Programming, simulation and adjustment of the electric vehicle model; 3. Application of co-simulation methodologies to MBS3D and the electric powertrain subsystem; and 4. Code optimization and study of different integrators. Additionally, in order to deeply understand the context of the project, the first chapters include an introduction to basic vehicle dynamics, current classification of hybrid and electric vehicles and an explanation of the involved technologies such as brake energy regeneration, electric and non-electric propulsion systems for EVs and HEVs (hybrid electric vehicles) and their control strategies. Later, the problem of dynamic modeling of hybrid and electric vehicles is discussed. The integrated development environment and the simulation tool are also briefly described. The core chapters include an explanation of the major co-simulation methodologies and how they have been programmed and applied to the electric powertrain model together with the multibody system dynamic model. Finally, the last chapters summarize the main results and conclusions of the project and propose further research topics. In conclusion, co-simulation methodologies are applicable within the integrated development environments MATLAB and Visual Studio, and the simulation tool MBS3D 2.0, where equation-based models of multidisciplinary subsystems, consisting of mechanical and electrical components, are coupled and integrated in a very efficient way.

VHDL-based system design of a cognitive sensorimotor loop (CSL) for haptic Human-Machine Interaction (HMI)

This document is a summary of the Bachelor thesis titled “VHDL-Based System Design of a Cognitive Sensorimotor Loop (CSL) for Haptic Human-Machine Interaction (HMI)” written by Pablo de Miguel Morales, Electronics Engineering student at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM Madrid, Spain) during an Erasmus+ Exchange Program at the Beuth Hochschule für Technik (BHT Berlin, Germany). The tutor of this project is Dr. Prof. Hild. This project has been developed inside the Neurobotics Research Laboratory (NRL) in close collaboration with Benjamin Panreck, a member of the NRL, and another exchange student from the UPM Pablo Gabriel Lezcano. For a deeper comprehension of the content of the thesis, a deeper look in the document is needed as well as the viewing of the videos and the VHDL design. In the growing field of automation, a large amount of workforce is dedicated to improve, adapt and design motor controllers for a wide variety of applications. In the specific field of robotics or other machinery designed to interact with humans or their environment, new needs and technological solutions are often being discovered due to the existing, relatively unexplored new scenario it is. The project consisted of three main parts: Two VHDL-based systems and one short experiment on the haptic perception. Both VHDL systems are based on a Cognitive Sensorimotor Loop (CSL) which is a control loop designed by the NRL and mainly developed by Dr. Prof. Hild. The CSL is a control loop whose main characteristic is the fact that it does not use any external sensor to measure the speed or position of the motor but the motor itself. The motor always generates a voltage that is proportional to its angular speed so it does not need calibration. This method is energy efficient and simplifies control loops in complex systems. The first system, named CSL Stay In Touch (SIT), consists in a one DC motor system controller by a FPGA Board (Zynq ZYBO 7000) whose aim is to keep contact with any external object that touches its Sensing Platform in both directions. Apart from the main behavior, three features (Search Mode, Inertia Mode and Return Mode) have been designed to enhance the haptic interaction experience. Additionally, a VGA-Screen is also controlled by the FPGA Board for the monitoring of the whole system. This system has been completely developed, tested and improved; analyzing its timing and consumption properties. The second system, named CSL Fingerlike Mechanism (FM), consists in a fingerlike mechanical system controlled by two DC motors (Each controlling one part of the finger). The behavior is similar to the first system but in a more complex structure. This system was optional and not part of the original objectives of the thesis and it could not be properly finished and tested due to the lack of time. The haptic perception experiment was an experiment conducted to have an insight into the complexity of human haptic perception in order to implement this knowledge into technological applications. The experiment consisted in testing the capability of the subjects to recognize different objects and shapes while being blindfolded and with their ears covered. Two groups were done, one had full haptic perception while the other had to explore the environment with a plastic piece attached to their finger to create a haptic handicap. The conclusion of the thesis was that a haptic system based only on a CSL-based system is not enough to retrieve valuable information from the environment and that other sensors are needed (temperature, pressure, etc.) but that a CSL-based system is very useful to control the force applied by the system to interact with haptic sensible surfaces such as skin or tactile screens. RESUMEN. Este documento es un resumen del proyecto fin de grado titulado “VHDL-Based System Design of a Cognitive Sensorimotor Loop (CSL) for Haptic Human-Machine Interaction (HMI)” escrito por Pablo de Miguel, estudiante de Ingeniería Electrónica de Comunicaciones en la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM Madrid, España) durante un programa de intercambio Erasmus+ en la Beuth Hochschule für Technik (BHT Berlin, Alemania). El tutor de este proyecto ha sido Dr. Prof. Hild. Este proyecto se ha desarrollado dentro del Neurorobotics Research Laboratory (NRL) en estrecha colaboración con Benjamin Panreck (un miembro del NRL) y con Pablo Lezcano (Otro estudiante de intercambio de la UPM). Para una comprensión completa del trabajo es necesaria una lectura detenida de todo el documento y el visionado de los videos y análisis del diseño VHDL incluidos en el CD adjunto. En el creciente sector de la automatización, una gran cantidad de esfuerzo está dedicada a mejorar, adaptar y diseñar controladores de motor para un gran rango de aplicaciones. En el campo específico de la robótica u otra maquinaria diseñada para interactuar con los humanos o con su entorno, nuevas necesidades y soluciones tecnológicas se siguen desarrollado debido al relativamente inexplorado y nuevo escenario que supone. El proyecto consta de tres partes principales: Dos sistemas basados en VHDL y un pequeño experimento sobre la percepción háptica. Ambos sistemas VHDL están basados en el Cognitive Sesnorimotor Loop (CSL) que es un lazo de control creado por el NRL y cuyo desarrollador principal ha sido Dr. Prof. Hild. El CSL es un lazo de control cuya principal característica es la ausencia de sensores externos para medir la velocidad o la posición del motor, usando el propio motor como sensor. El motor siempre genera un voltaje proporcional a su velocidad angular de modo que no es necesaria calibración. Este método es eficiente en términos energéticos y simplifica los lazos de control en sistemas complejos. El primer sistema, llamado CSL Stay In Touch (SIT), consiste en un sistema formado por un motor DC controlado por una FPGA Board (Zynq ZYBO 7000) cuyo objetivo es mantener contacto con cualquier objeto externo que toque su plataforma sensible en ambas direcciones. Aparte del funcionamiento básico, tres modos (Search Mode, Inertia Mode y Return Mode) han sido diseñados para mejorar la interacción. Adicionalmente, se ha diseñado el control a través de la FPGA Board de una pantalla VGA para la monitorización de todo el sistema. El sistema ha sido totalmente desarrollado, testeado y mejorado; analizando su propiedades de timing y consumo energético. El segundo sistema, llamado CSL Fingerlike Mechanism (FM), consiste en un mecanismo similar a un dedo controlado por dos motores DC (Cada uno controlando una falange). Su comportamiento es similar al del primer sistema pero con una estructura más compleja. Este sistema no formaba parte de los objetivos iniciales del proyecto y por lo tanto era opcional. No pudo ser plenamente desarrollado debido a la falta de tiempo. El experimento de percepción háptica fue diseñado para profundizar en la percepción háptica humana con el objetivo de aplicar este conocimiento en aplicaciones tecnológicas. El experimento consistía en testear la capacidad de los sujetos para reconocer diferentes objetos, formas y texturas en condiciones de privación del sentido del oído y la vista. Se crearon dos grupos, en uno los sujetos tenían plena percepción háptica mientras que en el otro debían interactuar con los objetos a través de una pieza de plástico para generar un hándicap háptico. La conclusión del proyecto fue que un sistema háptico basado solo en sistemas CSL no es suficiente para recopilar información valiosa del entorno y que debe hacer uso de otros sensores (temperatura, presión, etc.). En cambio, un sistema basado en CSL es idóneo para el control de la fuerza aplicada por el sistema durante la interacción con superficies hápticas sensibles tales como la piel o pantallas táctiles.

Human-computer interaction based on visual hand-gesture recognition using volumetric spatiograms of local binary patterns

A more natural, intuitive, user-friendly, and less intrusive Human–Computer interface for controlling an application by executing hand gestures is presented. For this purpose, a robust vision-based hand-gesture recognition system has been developed, and a new database has been created to test it. The system is divided into three stages: detection, tracking, and recognition. The detection stage searches in every frame of a video sequence potential hand poses using a binary Support Vector Machine classifier and Local Binary Patterns as feature vectors. These detections are employed as input of a tracker to generate a spatio-temporal trajectory of hand poses. Finally, the recognition stage segments a spatio-temporal volume of data using the obtained trajectories, and compute a video descriptor called Volumetric Spatiograms of Local Binary Patterns (VS-LBP), which is delivered to a bank of SVM classifiers to perform the gesture recognition. The VS-LBP is a novel video descriptor that constitutes one of the most important contributions of the paper, which is able to provide much richer spatio-temporal information than other existing approaches in the state of the art with a manageable computational cost. Excellent results have been obtained outperforming other approaches of the state of the art.

Development of a hand-gesture recognition system for human-computer interaction

The aim of this Master Thesis is the analysis, design and development of a robust and reliable Human-Computer Interaction interface, based on visual hand-gesture recognition. The implementation of the required functions is oriented to the simulation of a classical hardware interaction device: the mouse, by recognizing a specific hand-gesture vocabulary in color video sequences. For this purpose, a prototype of a hand-gesture recognition system has been designed and implemented, which is composed of three stages: detection, tracking and recognition. This system is based on machine learning methods and pattern recognition techniques, which have been integrated together with other image processing approaches to get a high recognition accuracy and a low computational cost. Regarding pattern recongition techniques, several algorithms and strategies have been designed and implemented, which are applicable to color images and video sequences. The design of these algorithms has the purpose of extracting spatial and spatio-temporal features from static and dynamic hand gestures, in order to identify them in a robust and reliable way. Finally, a visual database containing the necessary vocabulary of gestures for interacting with the computer has been created.

Transcriptional repression by YY1 is mediated by interaction with a mammalian homolog of the yeast global regulator RPD3

YY1 is a mammalian zinc-finger transcription factor with unusual structural and functional features. It has been implicated as a positive and a negative regulatory factor that binds to the CCATNTT consensus DNA element located in promoters of many cellular and viral genes. A mammalian cDNA that encodes a YY1-binding protein and possesses sequence homology with the yeast transcriptional factor RPD3 has been identified. A Gal4 DNA binding domain–mammalian RPD3 fusion protein strongly represses transcription from a promoter containing Gal4 binding sites. Association between YY1 and mammalian RPD3 requires a glycine-rich region on YY1. Mutations in this region abolish the interaction with mammalian RPD3 and eliminate transcriptional repression by YY1. These data suggest that YY1 negatively regulates transcription by tethering RPD3 to DNA as a cofactor and that this transcriptional mechanism is highly conserved from yeast to human.

Interaction of Cryptochrome 1, Phytochrome, and Ion Fluxes in Blue-Light-Induced Shrinking of Arabidopsis Hypocotyl Protoplasts1

Protoplasts isolated from red-light-adapted Arabidopsis hypocotyls and incubated under red light exhibited rapid and transient shrinking within a period of 20 min in response to a blue-light pulse and following the onset of continuous blue light. Long-persisting shrinkage was also observed during continuous stimulation. Protoplasts from a hy4 mutant and the phytochrome-deficient phyA/phyB double mutant of Arabidopsis showed little response, whereas those from phyA and phyB mutants showed a partial response. It is concluded that the shrinking response itself is mediated by the HY4 gene product, cryptochrome 1, whereas the blue-light responsiveness is strictly controlled by phytochromes A and B, with a greater contribution by phytochrome B. It is shown further that the far-red-absorbing form of phytochrome (Pfr) was not required during or after, but was required before blue-light perception. Furthermore, a component that directly determines the blue-light responsiveness was generated by Pfr after a lag of 15 min over a 15-min period and decayed with similar kinetics after removal of Pfr by far-red light. The anion-channel blocker 5-nitro-2-(3-phenylpropylamino)-benzoic acid prevented the shrinking response. This result, together with those in the literature and the kinetic features of shrinking, suggests that anion channels are activated first, and outward-rectifying cation channels are subsequently activated, resulting in continued net effluxes of Cl− and K+. The postshrinking volume recovery is achieved by K+ and Cl− influxes, with contribution by the proton motive force. External Ca2+ has no role in shrinking and the recovery. The gradual swelling of protoplasts that prevails under background red light is shown to be a phytochrome-mediated response in which phytochrome A contributes more than phytochrome B.