End-User Development Success Factors and their Application to Composite Web Development Environments

The Future Internet is expected to be composed of a mesh of interoperable Web services accessed from all over the Web. This approach has not yet caught on since global user-service interaction is still an open issue. Successful composite applications rely on heavyweight service orchestration technologies that raise the bar far above end-user skills. The weakness lies in the abstraction of the underlying service front-end architecture rather than the infrastructure technologies themselves. In our opinion, the best approach is to offer end-to-end composition from user interface to service invocation, as well as an understandable abstraction of both building blocks and a visual composition technique. In this paper we formalize our vision with regard to the next-generation front-end Web technology that will enable integrated access to services, contents and things in the Future Internet. We present a novel reference architecture designed to empower non-technical end users to create and share their own self-service composite applications. A tool implementing this architecture has been developed as part of the European FP7 FAST Project and EzWeb Project, allowing us to validate the rationale behind our approach.

Using the Journalistic Metaphor to Design User Interfaces That Explain Sensor Data

Facilitating general access to data from sensor networks (including traffic, hydrology and other domains) increases their utility. In this paper we argue that the journalistic metaphor can be effectively used to automatically generate multimedia presentations that help non-expert users analyze and understand sensor data. The journalistic layout and style are familiar to most users. Furthermore, the journalistic approach of ordering information from most general to most specific helps users obtain a high-level understanding while providing them the freedom to choose the depth of analysis to which they want to go. We describe the general characteristics and architectural requirements for an interactive intelligent user interface for exploring sensor data that uses the journalistic metaphor. We also describe our experience in developing this interface in real-world domains (e.g., hydrology).

Analyzing Query Success and User Context

This paper describes the participation of DAEDALUS at the LogCLEF lab in CLEF 2011. This year, the objectives of our participation are twofold. The first topic is to analyze if there is any measurable effect on the success of the search queries if the native language and the interface language chosen by the user are different. The idea is to determine if this difference may condition the way in which the user interacts with the search application. The second topic is to analyze the user context and his/her interaction with the system in the case of successful queries, to discover out any relation among the user native language, the language of the resource involved and the interaction strategy adopted by the user to find out such resource. Only 6.89% of queries are successful out of the 628,607 queries in the 320,001 sessions with at least one search query in the log. The main conclusion that can be drawn is that, in general for all languages, whether the native language matches the interface language or not does not seem to affect the success rate of the search queries. On the other hand, the analysis of the strategy adopted by users when looking for a particular resource shows that people tend to use the simple search tool, frequently first running short queries build up of just one specific term and then browsing through the results to locate the expected resource

Desarrollo de una GUI para el estudio de Sistemas de Comunicaciones Ópticas

El peso específico de las Comunicaciones Ópticas dentro del ámbito de la Ingeniería de Telecomunicación no cesa de crecer. Sus aplicaciones, inicialmente dedicadas a las grandes líneas que enlazan las centrales de conmutación, alcanzan en la actualidad, como se ha mencionado, hasta los mismos hogares. Los progresos en este campo, con una sucesión sin tregua, no sólo se destinan a incrementar la capacidad de transmisión de los sistemas, sino a ampliar la diversidad de los procesos que sobre las señales se efectúan en el dominio óptico. Este dinamismo demanda a los profesionales del sector una revisión y actualización de sus conocimientos que les permitan resolver con soltura las cuestiones de su actividad de ingeniería. Por otra parte, durante los últimos años la importancia de las Comunicaciones Ópticas también se ha reflejado en las diferentes titulaciones de Ingenierías de Telecomunicación, cuyos planes de estudio contemplan esta materia tanto en asignaturas troncales como optativas. A menudo, las fuentes de información disponibles abordan esta disciplina con una orientación principalmente teórica. Profesionales y estudiantes de Ingeniería, pues, frente a esta materia se encuentran unos temas que tratan fenómenos físicos complejos, abundantes en conceptos abstractos y con un florido aparato matemático, pero muchas veces carentes de una visión práctica, importantísima en ingeniería, y que es, en definitiva, lo que se exige a alumnos e ingenieros: saber resolver problemas y cuestiones relacionados con las Comunicaciones Ópticas. Los sistemas de comunicaciones ópticas, y en especial aquellos que utilizan la fibra óptica como medio para la transmisión de información, como se ha dicho, están alcanzando un desarrollo importante en el campo de las telecomunicaciones. Las bondades que ofrece la fibra, de sobra conocidos y mencionados en el apartado que antecede (gran ancho de banda, inmunidad total a las perturbaciones de origen electromagnético, así como la no producción de interferencias, baja atenuación, etc.), han hecho que, hoy en día, sea uno de los campos de las llamadas tecnologías de la información y la comunicación que presente mayor interés por parte de científicos, ingenieros, operadores de telecomunicaciones y, por supuesto, usuarios. Ante esta realidad, el objetivo y justificación de la realización de este proyecto, por tanto, no es otro que el de acercar esta tecnología al futuro ingeniero de telecomunicaciones, y/o a cualquier persona con un mínimo de interés en este tema, y mostrarle de una forma práctica y visual los diferentes fenómenos que tienen lugar en la transmisión de información por medio de fibra óptica, así como los diferentes bloques y dispositivos en que se divide dicha comunicación. Para conseguir tal objetivo, el proyecto fin de carrera aquí presentado tiene como misión el desarrollo de una interfaz gráfica de usuario (GUI, del inglés Graphic User Interface) que permita a aquel que la utilice configurar de manera sencilla cada uno de los bloques en que se compone un enlace punto a punto de fibra óptica. Cada bloque en que se divide este enlace estará compuesto por varias opciones, que al elegir y configurar como se quiera, hará variar el comportamiento del sistema y presentará al usuario los diferentes fenómenos presentes en un sistema de comunicaciones ópticas, como son el ruido, la dispersión, la atenuación, etc., para una mejor comprensión e interiorización de la teoría estudiada. Por tanto, la aplicación, implementada en MATLAB, fruto de la realización de este PFC pretende servir de complemento práctico para las asignaturas dedicadas al estudio de las comunicaciones ópticas a estudiantes en un entorno amigable e intuitivo. Optical Communications in the field of Telecommunications Engineering continues to grow. Its applications, initially dedicated to large central lines that link the switching currently achieved, as mentioned, to the same household nowadays. Progress in this field, with a relentless succession, not only destined to increase the transmission capacity of the systems, but to broaden the diversity of the processes that are performed on the signals in the optical domain. This demands to professionals reviewing and updating their skills to enable them resolve issues easily. Moreover, in recent years the importance of optical communications is also reflected in the different degrees of Telecommunications Engineering, whose curriculum contemplates this area. Often, the information sources available to tackle this discipline mainly theoretical orientation. Engineering professionals and students are faced this matter are few topics discussing complex physical phenomena, and abstract concepts abundant with a flowery mathematical apparatus, but often wotput a practical, important in engineering, and that is what is required of students and engineers: knowing how to solve problems and issues related to optical communications. Optical communications systems, particularly those using optical fiber as a medium for transmission of information, as stated, are reaching a significant development in the field of telecommunications. The advantages offered by the fiber, well known and referred to in the preceding paragraph (high bandwidth, immunity to electromagnetic disturbances of origin and production of non interference, low attenuation, etc..), have made today, is one of the fields of information and communication technology that this increased interest by scientists, engineers, telecommunications operators and, of course, users. Given this reality, the purpose and justification of this project is not other than to bring this technology to the future telecommunications engineer, and / or anyone with a passing interest in this subject, and showing of a practical and various visual phenomena occurring in the transmission of information by optical fiber, as well as different blocks and devices in which said communication is divided. To achieve that objective, the final project presented here has as its mission the development of a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows the user to configure each of the blocks in which divided a point-to-point optical fiber. Each block into which this link will consist of several options to choose and configure it as you like, this will change the behavior of the system and will present to the user with the different phenomena occurring in an optical communication system, such as noise, dispersion, attenuation, etc., for better understanding and internalization of the theory studied. Therefore, the application, implemented in MATLAB, the result of the completion of the thesis is intended to complement practical subjects for the study of optical communications students in a friendly and intuitive environment.

User-independent accelerometer-based gesture recognition for mobile devices

Many mobile devices embed nowadays inertial sensors. This enables new forms of human-computer interaction through the use of gestures (movements performed with the mobile device) as a way of communication. This paper presents an accelerometer-based gesture recognition system for mobile devices which is able to recognize a collection of 10 different hand gestures. The system was conceived to be light and to operate in a user -independent manner in real time. The recognition system was implemented in a smart phone and evaluated through a collection of user tests, which showed a recognition accuracy similar to other state-of-the art techniques and a lower computational complexity. The system was also used to build a human -robot interface that enables controlling a wheeled robot with the gestures made with the mobile phone.

Using clustering techniques for intelligent camera-based user interfaces

The area of Human-Machine Interface is growing fast due to its high importance in all technological systems. The basic idea behind designing human-machine interfaces is to enrich the communication with the technology in a natural and easy way. Gesture interfaces are a good example of transparent interfaces. Such interfaces must identify properly the action the user wants to perform, so the proper gesture recognition is of the highest importance. However, most of the systems based on gesture recognition use complex methods requiring high-resource devices. In this work, we propose to model gestures capturing their temporal properties, which significantly reduce storage requirements, and use clustering techniques, namely self-organizing maps and unsupervised genetic algorithm, for their classification. We further propose to train a certain number of algorithms with different parameters and combine their decision using majority voting in order to decrease the false positive rate. The main advantage of the approach is its simplicity, which enables the implementation using devices with limited resources, and therefore low cost. The testing results demonstrate its high potential.

Distributed Web Interface for Real-Time Spatial Audio Reproduction System

SSR es el acrónimo de SoundScape Renderer (tool for real-time spatial audio reproduction providing a variety of rendering algorithms), es un programa escrito en su mayoría en C++. El programa permite al usuario escuchar tanto sonidos grabados con anterioridad como sonidos en directo. El sonido o los sonidos se oirán, desde el punto de vista del oyente, como si el sonido se produjese en el punto que el programa decida, lo interesante de este proyecto es que el sonido podrá cambiar de lugar, moverse, etc. Todo en tiempo real. Esto se consigue sin modificar el sonido al grabarlo pero sí al emitirlo, el programa calcula las variaciones necesarias para que al emitir el sonido al oyente le llegue como si el sonido realmente se generase en un punto del espacio o lo más parecido posible. La sensación de movimiento no deja de ser el punto anterior cambiando de lugar. La idea era crear una aplicación web basada en Canvas de HTML5 que se comunicará con esta interfaz de usuario remota. Así se solucionarían todos los problemas de compatibilidad ya que cualquier dispositivo con posibilidad de visualizar páginas web podría correr una aplicación basada en estándares web, por ejemplo un sistema con Windows o un móvil con navegador. El protocolo debía de ser WebSocket porque es un protocolo HTML5 y ofrece las “garantías” de latencia que una aplicación con necesidades de información en tiempo real requiere. Nos permite una comunicación full-dúplex asíncrona sin mucho payload que es justo lo que se venía a evitar al no usar polling normal de HTML. El problema que surgió fue que la interfaz de usuario de red que tenía el programa no era compatible con WebSocket debido a un handshacking inicial y obligatorio que realiza el protocolo, por lo que se necesitaba otra interfaz de red. Se decidió entonces cambiar a JSON como formato para el intercambio de mensajes. Al final el proyecto comprende no sólo la aplicación web basada en Canvas sino también un servidor funcional y la definición de una nueva interfaz de usuario de red con su protocolo añadido. ABSTRACT. This project aims to become a part of the SSR tool to extend its capabilities in the field of the access. SSR is an acronym for SoundScape Renderer, is a program mostly written in C++ that allows you to hear already recorded or live sound with a variety of sound equipment as if the sound came from a desired place in the space. Like the web-page of the SSR says surely better explained: “The SoundScape Renderer (SSR) is a tool for real-time spatial audio reproduction providing a variety of rendering algorithms.” The application can be used with a graphical interface written in Qt but has also a network interface for external applications to use it. This network interface communicates using XML messages. A good example of it is the Android client. This Android client is already working. In order to use the application should be run it by loading an audio source and the wanted environment so that the renderer knows what to do. In that moment the server binds and anyone can use the network interface. Since the network interface is documented everyone can make an application to interact with this network interface. So the application can have as many user interfaces as wanted. The part that is developed in this project has nothing to do neither with audio rendering nor even with the reproduction of the spatial audio. The part that is developed here is about the interface used in the SSR application. As it can be deduced from the title: “Distributed Web Interface for Real-Time Spatial Audio Reproduction System”, this work aims only to offer the interface via web for the SSR (“Real-Time Spatial Audio Reproduction System”). The idea is not to make a new graphical interface for SSR but to allow more types of interfaces and communication. To accomplish the objective of allowing more graphical interfaces this project is going to use a new network interface. By now the SSR application is using only XML for data interchange but this new network interface support JSON. This project comprehends the server that launch the application, the user interface and the new network interface. It is done with these modules in order to allow creating new user interfaces that can communicate with the server or new servers that can communicate with the user interface by defining a complete network interface for data interchange.

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

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

Desarrollo de nueva funcionalidad e interfaz web y móvil para la API MappingAPI2

Vivimos en la era de la información y del internet, tenemos la necesidad cada vez mayor de conseguir y compartir la información que existe. Esta necesidad se da en todos los ámbitos existentes pero con más ahínco probablemente sea en el área de la medicina, razón por la cual se llevan a cabo muchas investigaciones de distinta índole, lo cual ha llevado a generar un cantidad inimaginable de información y esta su vez muy heterogénea, haciendo cada vez más difícil unificarla y sacar conocimiento o valor agregado. Por lo cual se han llevado a cabo distintas investigaciones para dar solución a este problema, quizás la más importante y con más crecimiento es la búsqueda a partir de modelos de ontologías mediante el uso de sistemas que puedan consultarla. Este trabajo de Fin de Master hace hincapié es la generación de las consultas para poder acceder a la información que se encuentra de manera distribuida en distintos sitios y de manera heterogénea, mediante el uso de una API que genera el código SPARQL necesario. La API que se uso fue creada por el grupo de informática biomédica. También se buscó una manera eficiente de publicar esta API para su futuro uso en el proyecto p-medicine, por lo cual se creó un servicio RESTful para permitir generar las consultas deseadas desde cualquier plataforma, haciendo en esto caso más accesible y universal. Se le dio también una interfaz WEB a la API que permitiera hacer uso de la misma de una manera más amigable para el usuario. ---ABSTRACT---We live in the age of information and Internet so we have the need to consult and share the info that exists. This need comes is in every scope of our lives, probably one of the more important is the medicine, because it is the knowledge area that treats diseases and it tries to extents the live of the human beings. For that reason there have been many different researches generating huge amounts of heterogeneous and distributed information around the globe and making the data more difficult to consult. Consequently there have been many researches to look for an answer about to solve the problem of searching heterogeneous and distributed data, perhaps the more important if the one that use ontological models. This work is about the generation of the query statement based on the mapping API created by the biomedical informatics group. At the same time the project looks for the best way to publish and make available the API for its use in the p-medicine project, for that reason a RESTful API was made to allow the generation of consults from within the platform, becoming much more accessible and universal available. A Web interface was also made to the API, to let access to the final user in a friendly

A component- and connector-based approach for end-user composite web applications development

Enabling real end-user development is the next logical stage in the evolution of Internet-wide service-based applications. Successful composite applications rely on heavyweight service orchestration technologies that raise the bar far above end-user skills. This weakness can be attributed to the fact that the composition model does not satisfy end-user needs rather than to the actual infrastructure technologies. In our opinion, the best way to overcome this weakness is to offer end-to-end composition from the user interface to service invocation, plus an understandable abstraction of building blocks and a visual composition technique empowering end users to develop their own applications. In this paper, we present a visual framework for end users, called FAST, which fulfils this objective. FAST implements a novel composition model designed to empower non-programmer end users to create and share their own self-service composite applications in a fully visual fashion. We projected the development environment implementing this model as part of the European FP7 FAST Project, which was used to validate the rationale behind our approach.

Hammer: an Android based application for end-user industrial robot programming

This paper presents a novel tablet based end-user interface for industrial robot programming (called Hammer). This application makes easier to program tasks for industrial robots like polishing, milling or grinding. It is based on the Scratch programming language, but specifically design and created for Android OS. It is a visual programming concept that allows non-skilled programmer operators to create programs. The application also allows to monitor the tasks while it is being executed by overlapping real time information through augmented reality. The application includes a teach pendant screen that can be customized according to the operator needs at every moment.

Design and implementation of an adaptive dashboard and visualization interface for the dynamic optimization and control of Data Centers

Over the last few years, the Data Center market has increased exponentially and this tendency continues today. As a direct consequence of this trend, the industry is pushing the development and implementation of different new technologies that would improve the energy consumption efficiency of data centers. An adaptive dashboard would allow the user to monitor the most important parameters of a data center in real time. For that reason, monitoring companies work with IoT big data filtering tools and cloud computing systems to handle the amounts of data obtained from the sensors placed in a data center.Analyzing the market trends in this field we can affirm that the study of predictive algorithms has become an essential area for competitive IT companies. Complex algorithms are used to forecast risk situations based on historical data and warn the user in case of danger. Considering that several different users will interact with this dashboard from IT experts or maintenance staff to accounting managers, it is vital to personalize it automatically. Following that line of though, the dashboard should only show relevant metrics to the user in different formats like overlapped maps or representative graphs among others. These maps will show all the information needed in a visual and easy-to-evaluate way. To sum up, this dashboard will allow the user to visualize and control a wide range of variables. Monitoring essential factors such as average temperature, gradients or hotspots as well as energy and power consumption and savings by rack or building would allow the client to understand how his equipment is behaving, helping him to optimize the energy consumption and efficiency of the racks. It also would help him to prevent possible damages in the equipment with predictive high-tech algorithms.

User interfaces for voice applications.

This paper discusses some of the aspects of task requirements, user expectations, and technological capabilities that influence the design of a voice interface and then identifies several components of user interfaces that are particularly critical in successful voice applications. Examples from several applications are provided to demonstrate how these components are used to produce effective voice interfaces.

A multimodal tablet-based interface for designing and reviewing 3D engineering models

The ability to view and interact with 3D models has been happening for a long time. However, vision-based 3D modeling has only seen limited success in applications, as it faces many technical challenges. Hand-held mobile devices have changed the way we interact with virtual reality environments. Their high mobility and technical features, such as inertial sensors, cameras and fast processors, are especially attractive for advancing the state of the art in virtual reality systems. Also, their ubiquity and fast Internet connection open a path to distributed and collaborative development. However, such path has not been fully explored in many domains. VR systems for real world engineering contexts are still difficult to use, especially when geographically dispersed engineering teams need to collaboratively visualize and review 3D CAD models. Another challenge is the ability to rendering these environments at the required interactive rates and with high fidelity. In this document it is presented a virtual reality system mobile for visualization, navigation and reviewing large scale 3D CAD models, held under the CEDAR (Collaborative Engineering Design and Review) project. It’s focused on interaction using different navigation modes. The system uses the mobile device's inertial sensors and camera to allow users to navigate through large scale models. IT professionals, architects, civil engineers and oil industry experts were involved in a qualitative assessment of the CEDAR system, in the form of direct user interaction with the prototypes and audio-recorded interviews about the prototypes. The lessons learned are valuable and are presented on this document. Subsequently it was prepared a quantitative study on the different navigation modes to analyze the best mode to use it in a given situation.

How to use WinEdt 5 as an interface for TDA

The text editor WinEdt 5 may be easily configured to provide a user interface for TDA. The configuration described below allows you to launch TDA command files directly from within WinEdt (via menu or shortcut). TDA's standard output will be written to disk and displayed in WinEdt automatically. Furthermore, you may also just execute selected parts of a command file.