3D Hand Pose Estimation with Neural Networks

We propose the design of a real-time system to recognize and interprethand gestures. The acquisition devices are low cost 3D sensors. 3D hand pose will be segmented, characterized and track using growing neural gas (GNG) structure. The capacity of the system to obtain information with a high degree of freedom allows the encoding of many gestures and a very accurate motion capture. The use of hand pose models combined with motion information provide with GNG permits to deal with the problem of the hand motion representation. A natural interface applied to a virtual mirrorwriting system and to a system to estimate hand pose will be designed to demonstrate the validity of the system.

Characterization of rock slopes through slope mass rating using 3D point clouds

Rock mass classification systems are widely used tools for assessing the stability of rock slopes. Their calculation requires the prior quantification of several parameters during conventional fieldwork campaigns, such as the orientation of the discontinuity sets, the main properties of the existing discontinuities and the geo-mechanical characterization of the intact rock mass, which can be time-consuming and an often risky task. Conversely, the use of relatively new remote sensing data for modelling the rock mass surface by means of 3D point clouds is changing the current investigation strategies in different rock slope engineering applications. In this paper, the main practical issues affecting the application of Slope Mass Rating (SMR) for the characterization of rock slopes from 3D point clouds are reviewed, using three case studies from an end-user point of view. To this end, the SMR adjustment factors, which were calculated from different sources of information and processes, using the different softwares, are compared with those calculated using conventional fieldwork data. In the presented analysis, special attention is paid to the differences between the SMR indexes derived from the 3D point cloud and conventional field work approaches, the main factors that determine the quality of the data and some recognized practical issues. Finally, the reliability of Slope Mass Rating for the characterization of rocky slopes is highlighted.

Reflective web interface agent

Web interface agent is used with web browsers to assist users in searching and interactions with the WWW. It is used for a variety of purposes, such as web-enabled remote control, web interactive visualization, and e-commerce activities. User may be aware or unaware of its existence. The intelligence of interface agent consists in its capability of learning and decision-making in performing interactive functions on behalf of a user. However, since web is an open system environment, the reasoning mechanism in an agent should be able to adapt changes and make decisions on exceptional situations, and therefore use meta knowledge. This paper proposes a framework of Reflective Web Interface Agent (RWIA) that is to provide causal connections between the application interfaces and the knowledge model of the interface agent. A prototype is also implemented for the purpose of demonstration.

miniDVMS v1.8 : A user manual(The data visualization and modeling system)

Today, the data available to tackle many scientific challenges is vast in quantity and diverse in nature. The exploration of heterogeneous information spaces requires suitable mining algorithms as well as effective visual interfaces. miniDVMS v1.8 provides a flexible visual data mining framework which combines advanced projection algorithms developed in the machine learning domain and visual techniques developed in the information visualisation domain. The advantage of this interface is that the user is directly involved in the data mining process. Principled projection methods, such as generative topographic mapping (GTM) and hierarchical GTM (HGTM), are integrated with powerful visual techniques, such as magnification factors, directional curvatures, parallel coordinates, and user interaction facilities, to provide this integrated visual data mining framework. The software also supports conventional visualisation techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA), Neuroscale, and PhiVis. This user manual gives an overview of the purpose of the software tool, highlights some of the issues to be taken care while creating a new model, and provides information about how to install and use the tool. The user manual does not require the readers to have familiarity with the algorithms it implements. Basic computing skills are enough to operate the software.

An information foraging theory based user study of an adaptive user interaction framework for content-based image retrieval

This paper presents the design and results of a task-based user study, based on Information Foraging Theory, on a novel user interaction framework - uInteract - for content-based image retrieval (CBIR). The framework includes a four-factor user interaction model and an interactive interface. The user study involves three focused evaluations, 12 simulated real life search tasks with different complexity levels, 12 comparative systems and 50 subjects. Information Foraging Theory is applied to the user study design and the quantitative data analysis. The systematic findings have not only shown how effective and easy to use the uInteract framework is, but also illustrate the value of Information Foraging Theory for interpreting user interaction with CBIR. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Enabling effective user interactions in content-based image retrieval

This paper presents an interactive content-based image retrieval framework—uInteract, for delivering a novel four-factor user interaction model visually. The four-factor user interaction model is an interactive relevance feedback mechanism that we proposed, aiming to improve the interaction between users and the CBIR system and in turn users overall search experience. In this paper, we present how the framework is developed to deliver the four-factor user interaction model, and how the visual interface is designed to support user interaction activities. From our preliminary user evaluation result on the ease of use and usefulness of the proposed framework, we have learnt what the users like about the framework and the aspects we could improve in future studies. Whilst the framework is developed for our research purposes, we believe the functionalities could be adapted to any content-based image search framework.

Sensemaking tools for understanding research literatures:design, implementation and user evaluation

This paper describes the work undertaken in the Scholarly Ontologies Project. The aim of the project has been to develop a computational approach to support scholarly sensemaking, through interpretation and argumentation, enabling researchers to make claims: to describe and debate their view of a document's key contributions and relationships to the literature. The project has investigated the technicalities and practicalities of capturing conceptual relations, within and between conventional documents in terms of abstract ontological structures. In this way, we have developed a new kind of index to distributed digital library systems. This paper reports a case study undertaken to test the sensemaking tools developed by the Scholarly Ontologies project. The tools used were ClaiMapper, which allows the user to sketch argument maps of individual papers and their connections, ClaiMaker, a server on which such models can be stored and saved, which provides interpretative services to assist the querying of argument maps across multiple papers and ClaimFinder, a novice interface to the search services in ClaiMaker.

AquaLog : an ontology-driven question answering system to interface the semantic web

The semantic web (SW) vision is one in which rich, ontology-based semantic markup will become widely available. The availability of semantic markup on the web opens the way to novel, sophisticated forms of question answering. AquaLog is a portable question-answering system which takes queries expressed in natural language (NL) and an ontology as input, and returns answers drawn from one or more knowledge bases (KB). AquaLog presents an elegant solution in which different strategies are combined together in a novel way. AquaLog novel ontology-based relation similarity service makes sense of user queries.

Multimodal Man-machine Interface and Virtual Reality for Assistive Medical Systems

The results of research the intelligence multimodal man-machine interface and virtual reality means for assistive medical systems including computers and mechatronic systems (robots) are discussed. The gesture translation for disability peoples, the learning-by-showing technology and virtual operating room with 3D visualization are presented in this report and were announced at International exhibition "Intelligent and Adaptive Robots–2005".

Interface Engineering and Design: Adaptibility Problems

* The research work reviewed in this paper has been carried out in the context of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research funded project “Adaptable Intelligent Interfaces Research and Development for Distance Learning Systems”(grant N 02-01-81019). The authors wish to acknowledge the co-operation with the Byelorussian partners of this project.

Integrating service user and practitioner expertise within a web-based system for collaborative mental-health risk and safety management

Objectives: To develop a decision support system (DSS), myGRaCE, that integrates service user (SU) and practitioner expertise about mental health and associated risks of suicide, self-harm, harm to others, self-neglect, and vulnerability. The intention is to help SUs assess and manage their own mental health collaboratively with practitioners. Methods: An iterative process involving interviews, focus groups, and agile software development with 115 SUs, to elicit and implement myGRaCE requirements. Results: Findings highlight shared understanding of mental health risk between SUs and practitioners that can be integrated within a single model. However, important differences were revealed in SUs' preferred process of assessing risks and safety, which are reflected in the distinctive interface, navigation, tool functionality and language developed for myGRaCE. A challenge was how to provide flexible access without overwhelming and confusing users. Conclusion: The methods show that practitioner expertise can be reformulated in a format that simultaneously captures SU expertise, to provide a tool highly valued by SUs. A stepped process adds necessary structure to the assessment, each step with its own feedback and guidance. Practice Implications: The GRiST web-based DSS (www.egrist.org) links and integrates myGRaCE self-assessments with GRiST practitioner assessments for supporting collaborative and self-managed healthcare.

A multimodal and adaptive real-time human -computer interface for peoples with severe motor disability

This dissertation introduces the design of a multimodal, adaptive real-time assistive system as an alternate human computer interface that can be used by individuals with severe motor disabilities. The proposed design is based on the integration of a remote eye-gaze tracking system, voice recognition software, and a virtual keyboard. The methodology relies on a user profile that customizes eye gaze tracking using neural networks. The user profiling feature facilitates the notion of universal access to computing resources for a wide range of applications such as web browsing, email, word processing and editing. ^ The study is significant in terms of the integration of key algorithms to yield an adaptable and multimodal interface. The contributions of this dissertation stem from the following accomplishments: (a) establishment of the data transport mechanism between the eye-gaze system and the host computer yielding to a significantly low failure rate of 0.9%; (b) accurate translation of eye data into cursor movement through congregate steps which conclude with calibrated cursor coordinates using an improved conversion function; resulting in an average reduction of 70% of the disparity between the point of gaze and the actual position of the mouse cursor, compared with initial findings; (c) use of both a moving average and a trained neural network in order to minimize the jitter of the mouse cursor, which yield an average jittering reduction of 35%; (d) introduction of a new mathematical methodology to measure the degree of jittering of the mouse trajectory; (e) embedding an onscreen keyboard to facilitate text entry, and a graphical interface that is used to generate user profiles for system adaptability. ^ The adaptability nature of the interface is achieved through the establishment of user profiles, which may contain the jittering and voice characteristics of a particular user as well as a customized list of the most commonly used words ordered according to the user's preferences: in alphabetical or statistical order. This allows the system to successfully provide the capability of interacting with a computer. Every time any of the sub-system is retrained, the accuracy of the interface response improves even more. ^

Usabilidade da Interface do Sistema Eletrônico de Editoração de Revistas: um estudo da revista BiblioCanto da UFRN

The electronic journals correspond publishing channels and dissemination of scientific information. Through them, users can spread their studies as well as developing new researches. One of the systems used for creation and e-journals management is the Electronic System for Journal Publishing (SEER), used in the construction of periodic portals, as well as the creation of magazines in isolation. In this purport, it is believed that the management systems and creation of e-journals should be developed (internally and externally) according to the needs of its users. In the case of internal development, some of these processes refer to the copyright registration and submission of articles, which, in turn, are relevant tasks in the editorial process. Thus, the proposed study, thematic Usability of scientific journals, aims to analyze the usability of the copyright registration process and submission of articles in the Electronic System for Journal Publishing through BiblioCanto magazine, part of the Electronic Journals Portal of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). For the realization of the research, two valuation techniques were used: the Usability Test with a total of twenty participants and the Cooperative Evaluation, with the same number of participants separated in four categories considered target audience of that magazine, namely: undergraduate students, graduate students, teachers and librarians. The results indicated that the two analyzed processes (copyright registration and submission of articles) need improvement. In the case of the registration process, the following needs are: signalizing of the conducting registration ambient; description and exclusion of requested information on the registration form. In the process of article submission, it is emphasized improvement of aspects: the early steps to submission, signaling of required fields, concise description of the steps, minimization and review of the steps. To this end, it is believed that in general idea the SEER partially meets the needs of its users regarding the usability of such software.

Usabilidade da Interface do Sistema Eletrônico de Editoração de Revistas: um estudo da revista BiblioCanto da UFRN

The electronic journals correspond publishing channels and dissemination of scientific information. Through them, users can spread their studies as well as developing new researches. One of the systems used for creation and e-journals management is the Electronic System for Journal Publishing (SEER), used in the construction of periodic portals, as well as the creation of magazines in isolation. In this purport, it is believed that the management systems and creation of e-journals should be developed (internally and externally) according to the needs of its users. In the case of internal development, some of these processes refer to the copyright registration and submission of articles, which, in turn, are relevant tasks in the editorial process. Thus, the proposed study, thematic Usability of scientific journals, aims to analyze the usability of the copyright registration process and submission of articles in the Electronic System for Journal Publishing through BiblioCanto magazine, part of the Electronic Journals Portal of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). For the realization of the research, two valuation techniques were used: the Usability Test with a total of twenty participants and the Cooperative Evaluation, with the same number of participants separated in four categories considered target audience of that magazine, namely: undergraduate students, graduate students, teachers and librarians. The results indicated that the two analyzed processes (copyright registration and submission of articles) need improvement. In the case of the registration process, the following needs are: signalizing of the conducting registration ambient; description and exclusion of requested information on the registration form. In the process of article submission, it is emphasized improvement of aspects: the early steps to submission, signaling of required fields, concise description of the steps, minimization and review of the steps. To this end, it is believed that in general idea the SEER partially meets the needs of its users regarding the usability of such software.

Uma interface para o controle de robôs móveis por intermédio de gestos

The main objective of this work was to enable the recognition of human gestures through the development of a computer program. The program created captures the gestures executed by the user through a camera attached to the computer and sends it to the robot command referring to the gesture. They were interpreted in total ve gestures made by human hand. The software (developed in C ++) widely used the computer vision concepts and open source library OpenCV that directly impact the overall e ciency of the control of mobile robots. The computer vision concepts take into account the use of lters to smooth/blur the image noise reduction, color space to better suit the developer's desktop as well as useful information for manipulating digital images. The OpenCV library was essential in creating the project because it was possible to use various functions/procedures for complete control lters, image borders, image area, the geometric center of borders, exchange of color spaces, convex hull and convexity defect, plus all the necessary means for the characterization of imaged features. During the development of the software was the appearance of several problems, as false positives (noise), underperforming the insertion of various lters with sizes oversized masks, as well as problems arising from the choice of color space for processing human skin tones. However, after the development of seven versions of the control software, it was possible to minimize the occurrence of false positives due to a better use of lters combined with a well-dimensioned mask size (tested at run time) all associated with a programming logic that has been perfected over the construction of the seven versions. After all the development is managed software that met the established requirements. After the completion of the control software, it was observed that the overall e ectiveness of the various programs, highlighting in particular the V programs: 84.75 %, with VI: 93.00 % and VII with: 94.67 % showed that the nal program performed well in interpreting gestures, proving that it was possible the mobile robot control through human gestures without the need for external accessories to give it a better mobility and cost savings for maintain such a system. The great merit of the program was to assist capacity in demystifying the man set/machine therefore uses an easy and intuitive interface for control of mobile robots. Another important feature observed is that to control the mobile robot is not necessary to be close to the same, as to control the equipment is necessary to receive only the address that the Robotino passes to the program via network or Wi-Fi.