User-centered design and evaluation of an interactive visual-haptic-auditory interface : a user study on assembly

Utilizing user-centred system design and evaluation method has become an increasingly important tool to foster better usability in the field of virtual environments (VEs). In recent years, although it is still the norm that designers and developers are concerning the technological advancement and striving for designing impressive multimodal multisensory interfaces, more and more awareness are aroused among the development team that in order to produce usable and useful interfaces, it is essential to have users in mind during design and validate a new design from users' perspective. In this paper, we describe a user study carried out to validate a newly developed haptically enabled virtual training system. By taking consideration of the complexity of individual differences on human performance, adoption and acceptance of haptic and audio-visual I/O devices, we address how well users learn, perform, adapt to and perceive object assembly training. We also explore user experience and interaction with the system, and discuss how multisensory feedback affects user performance, perception and acceptance. At last, we discuss how to better design VEs that enhance users perception, their interaction and motor activity.

Design and analysis of a fuzzy controller for a servo system

This paper presents design and simulation investigation of a fuzzy controller and a conventional PID controller for a servo system. First, a servo system is considered and its stability is discussed. Then, a PID controller that is tuned by the Ziegler-Nichols method is formulated for controlling the servo system. To improve the servo system's dynamic response parameters, a fuzzy controller is then proposed for controlling the system. A performance comparison between the fuzzy and the PID controllers are carried out. The results are presented and discussed.

The strange and the familiar : seeing beyond when we know

My novel is a collection of interrelated stories. Each story is framed by the idiosyncrasies and prejudices of a different first-person voice. There are gaps in narrative time and there is disparity between the narrators’ voices. The result is a ‘discontinuous narrative’; this term describes the early work of Frank Moorhouse: ‘an innovative narrative method using interconnected stories’ (Griffith University 2011).
As I draft and re-draft the stories, I am forced to assess the interaction between the voices. I am aware of the disjuncture, and I ask myself: Why not tell the story through the eyes of one narrator? Why not choose a third-person perspective, an omniscient narrator who might collect all of the voices together, in a coherent way?
As I second-guess my approach, I realise that the splintering of voices feels like the right way to tell the story and, in this way, I approach the question of methodology. I am aware that a sense of disjuncture arises out of the medley of voices, but I also realise that the disjuncture is carefully constructed; it is not accidental. This is an intuitive judgement.
If I edit my novel ethically, I ask what the discontinuity achieves, rather than how it fails in the context of logic. This means that I recognise that the narrative begins from a place that does not worry about logic, and I realise that second-guessing the surface content of the narrative, from a rational perspective, may be counterproductive.
The conscious mind, fettered as it is with inhibitions, may fail to see that the logical track is not necessarily the most productive route. The conscious mind may not recognise that going off-track is the way forward and, perhaps, the only way that the story can become something other than what I, in my rational mind, believe that it should be.
Ethical editing means that I am attentive to my intuitive response to the narrative; it means that I tolerate incongruous elements of the narrative, even if they do not fit the criteria of logic.
Ethical editing is a meeting of minds (both mine); the fully conscious mind meets the work of the subconscious mind with surprise and approval, at best, skepticism and derision, at worst. The work of the subconscious mind is elusive but it need not be subjugated to logical, rational considerations, for this means that I delimit the work of the subconscious; it means I assess the discontinuity on the basis of an external operating system; it means that I impose certain criteria upon the surface narrative, criteria that has nothing to do with understanding why the discontinuity exists in the first instance.
Alternatively, when I pay heed to a primal moment of narrative composition, a moment that is not necessarily consciously determined or logical, I apprise the surface of the narrative as a metaphorical map, I attempt to engage with the possibilities for meaning that the map encompasses; this constitutes a quest for the unstable how of meaning attribution.

The honeymoon killer : plea bargaining and intimate femicide : a response to Watson

In October 2003, US citizen Christina Thomas died while scuba diving on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. Following over five years of delays, her husband David Watson accepted a plea bargain to which he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of criminal negligence. Watson was initially sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment, suspended after 12 months, however this was later increased on appeal to suspension after 18 months. Using Watson as a framework for analysis, this article examines some of the limitations of an inefficient justice system, with a particular focus on the private nature of the plea bargaining process, and the potentially favourable representations and sentencing of men who kill a female intimate partner. The authors argue that the need to respond to court inefficiency and under-resourcing in the criminal courts creates pressures that can result in a desire for increased efficiency being prioritised above other justice concerns, and this allows for existing flaws within the operation of the criminal justice system to be exacerbated, and excused.

Linking water-resource models to ecosystem-response models to guide water-resource planning -- an example from the Murray--Darling Basin, Australia

Objectively assessing ecological benefits of competing watering strategies is difficult. We present a framework of coupled models to compare scenarios, using the Coorong, the estuary for the MurrayDarling River system in South Australia, as a case study. The framework links outputs from recent modelling of the effects of climate change on water availability across the MurrayDarling Basin to a hydrodynamic model for the Coorong, and then an ecosystem-response model. The approach has significant advantages, including the following: (1) evaluating management actions is straightforward because of relatively tight coupling between impacts on hydrology and ecology; (2) scenarios of 111 years reveal the impacts of realistic climatic and flow variability on Coorong ecology; and (3) ecological impact is represented in the model by a series of ecosystem states, integrating across many organisms, not just iconic species. We applied the approach to four flow scenarios, comparing conditions without development, current water-use levels, and two predicted future climate scenarios. Simulation produced a range of hydrodynamic conditions and consequent distributions of ecosystem states, allowing managers to compare scenarios. This approach could be used with many climates and/or management actions for optimisation of flow delivery to environmental assets.

Low-cost interactive active range finder

This paper describes a new type of low-cost interactive active range finder and illustrates the effect of introducing interactivity to the range-acquisition process. The new range finder consists of only one camera and a laser pointer to which three LEDs are attached. When a user scans the laser, the camera captures the image of spots (one from the laser and the others from LEDs), and triangulation is carried out using the camera's viewing direction and the optical axis of the laser. The user interaction allows the range finder to acquire range data in which the sampling rate varies across the object depending on the underlying surface structures. Moreover, the processes of separating objects from the background and/or finding parts in the object can be achieved using the operator's knowledge of the objects.

The uptake of an early warning system in an Australian emergency department : a pilot study

Objectives: To evaluate the uptake of an emergency department early warning system (ED EWS) for recognition of, and response to, clinical deterioration.

Design, setting and participants: A descriptive exploratory study conducted in an urban district hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Systematic sampling was used to identify every 10th patient for whom the ED EWS was activated from May 2009 to May 2011.

Main outcome measures: Patient characteristics, ED system data and ED EWS activation characteristics.

Results: ED EWS activation occurred in 1.5% of ED patients; 204 patients were included in this pilot study. The median age was 65.1 years (interquartile range [IQR], 47.8-77.5 years), 89.2% of patients were classified as triage category 2 or 3, and 82.4% of patients were seen by medical staff before ED EWS activation. Hypotension (27.7%) and tachycardia (23.7%) were the most common reasons for ED EWS activation. Median duration of clinical instability was 39 minutes (IQR, 5- 129 minutes). Nurses made 93.1% of ED EWS activations. Median time between documenting physiological abnormalities and ED EWS activation was 5 minutes (IQR, 0- 20). Most patients (57.8%) required hospital admission: 4.4% of patients required intensive care unit admission.

Conclusions: The ED EWS resulted in at least two formal reports of clinical deterioration in ED patients per day, indicating reasonable uptake by clinicians. A greater understanding of clinical deterioration in ED patients is warranted to inform an evidence-based approach to recognition of, and response to, clinical deterioration in ED patients.

Wireless instantaneous neurotransmitter concentration system-based amperometric detection of dopamine, adenosine, and glutamate for intraoperative neurochemical monitoring - laboratory investigation

Object  In a companion study, the authors describe the development of a new instrument named the Wireless Instantaneous Neurotransmitter Concentration System (WINCS), which couples digital telemetry with fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) to measure extracellular concentrations of dopamine. In the present study, the authors describe the extended capability of the WINCS to use fixed potential amperometry (FPA) to measure extracellular concentrations of dopamine, as well as glutamate and adenosine. Compared with other electrochemical techniques such as FSCV or high-speed chronoamperometry, FPA offers superior temporal resolution and, in combination with enzyme-linked biosensors, the potential to monitor nonelectroactive analytes in real time.

Methods  The WINCS design incorporated a transimpedance amplifier with associated analog circuitry for FPA; a microprocessor; a Bluetooth transceiver; and a single, battery-powered, multilayer, printed circuit board. The WINCS was tested with 3 distinct recording electrodes: 1) a carbon-fiber microelectrode (CFM) to measure dopamine; 2) a glutamate oxidase enzyme–linked electrode to measure glutamate; and 3) a multiple enzyme–linked electrode (adenosine deaminase, nucleoside phosphorylase, and xanthine oxidase) to measure adenosine. Proof-of-principle analyses included noise assessments and in vitro and in vivo measurements that were compared with similar analyses by using a commercial hardwired electrochemical system (EA161 Picostat, eDAQ; Pty Ltd). In urethane-anesthetized rats, dopamine release was monitored in the striatum following deep brain stimulation (DBS) of ascending dopaminergic fibers in the medial forebrain bundle (MFB). In separate rat experiments, DBS-evoked adenosine release was monitored in the ventrolateral thalamus. To test the WINCS in an operating room setting resembling human neurosurgery, cortical glutamate release in response to motor cortex stimulation (MCS) was monitored using a large-mammal animal model, the pig.

Results   The WINCS, which is designed in compliance with FDA-recognized consensus standards for medical electrical device safety, successfully measured dopamine, glutamate, and adenosine, both in vitro and in vivo. The WINCS detected striatal dopamine release at the implanted CFM during DBS of the MFB. The DBS-evoked adenosine release in the rat thalamus and MCS-evoked glutamate release in the pig cortex were also successfully measured. Overall, in vitro and in vivo testing demonstrated signals comparable to a commercial hardwired electrochemical system for FPA.

Conclusions  By incorporating FPA, the chemical repertoire of WINCS-measurable neurotransmitters is expanded to include glutamate and other nonelectroactive species for which the evolving field of enzyme-linked biosensors exists. Because many neurotransmitters are not electrochemically active, FPA in combination with enzyme-linked microelectrodes represents a powerful intraoperative tool for rapid and selective neurochemical sampling in important anatomical targets during functional neurosurgery.

An Intelligent Human-Computer Interaction System for Decision Support

This paper proposes a novel architecture for
developing decision support systems. Unlike conventional decision support systems, the proposed architecture endeavors to reveal the decision-making process such that humans' subjectivity can be
incorporated into a computerized system and, at the same time, to
preserve the capability of the computerized system in processing information objectively. A number of techniques used in developing the decision support system are elaborated to make the decisionmarking
process transparent. These include procedures for high dimensional data visualization, pattern classification, prediction, and evolutionary computational search. An artificial data set is first
employed to compare the proposed approach with other methods. A simulated handwritten data set and a real data set on liver disease diagnosis are then employed to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed
approach. The results are analyzed and discussed. The potentials of the proposed architecture as a useful decision support system are demonstrated.

Donor identification 'kills gamete donation'? A response

Two Australian government inquiries have recently called for the release of information to donor-conceived people about their gamete donors. A national inquiry, recommended ‘as a matter of priority’ that uniform legislation to be passed nationwide. A state-based inquiry argued that all donor-conceived people should have access to information and called for the enactment of retrospective legislation that would override donor anonymity. This paper responds to an opinion piece published in Human Reproduction in October 2012 by Professor Pennings in which he criticized such recommendations and questioned the motives of people that advocate for information release. I answer the arguments of Pennings, and argue that all parties affected by donor conception should be considered, and a compromise reached. The contact veto system is one such compromise. I discuss the education and support services recommended by the Victorian government and question Pennings' assertions that legislation enabling information release will lead to a decrease in gamete donation. Finally, I rebut Pennings' assertion that there is a ‘hidden agenda’ behind the call for information release. There is no such agenda in my work. If there is from others, then it is their discriminatory views that need to be addressed, not the move toward openness and honesty or the call for information by donor-conceived people.

Estimating non-response bias in a web-based survey of technology acceptance : a case study of unit guide information systems

Surveys are mostly challenged by response rates. Among the various types of survey research, web-based (internet-based/electronic/online) surveys are commonly used for data collection for a geographically diverse population. In surveys with high/low response rates, non-response bias can be a major concern. While it is not always possible to measure the actual bias due to non-response there are different approaches and techniques that help to identify reasons of non-response bias. The aims of this paper are twofold. (1) To provide an appropriate, interesting and important non-response bias case study for future web-based surveys that will provide guidance to other Information Systems researchers. The case-study concerns an online-survey to evaluate a technology acceptance model for Unit Guide Information systems (UGIS). (2) To discuss how nonresponse bias in a web-based technology acceptance study of an information system (UGIS in this case) can be contained and managed.

An interactive genetic algorithm approach to MMIC low noise amplifier design using a layered encoding structure

In this paper, an interactive genetic algorithm (IGA) approach is developed to optimize design variables for a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) low noise amplifier. A layered encoding structure is employed to the problem representation in genetic algorithm to allow human intervention in the circuit design variable tuning process. The MMIC amplifier design is synthesized using the Agilent Advance Design System (ADS), and the IGA is proposed to tune the design variables in order to meet multiple constraints and objectives such as noise figure, current and simulated power gain. The developed IGA is compared with other optimization techniques from ADS. The results showed that the IGA performs better in achieving most of the involved objectives.

Conducting field research in a primary school setting : methodological considerations for maximizing response rates, data quality and quantity

Background: Schools are an ideal setting in which to involve children in research. Yet for investigators wishing to work in these settings, there are few method papers providing insights into working efficiently in this setting.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to describe the five strategies used to increase response rates, data quality and quantity in the TRansport Environment and Kids (TREK) project.

Setting: The TREK project examined the association between neighbourhood urban design and active transport in Grade 5–7 school children (n = 1480) attending 25 primary schools in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia during 2007.

Method: Children completed several survey components during school time (i.e. questionnaire, mapping activity, travel diary and anthropometric measurements) and at home (i.e. pedometer study, parent questionnaire).

Results: Overall, 69.4% of schools and 56.6% of children agreed to participate in the study and, of these, 89.9% returned a completed travel diary, 97.8% returned their pedometer and 88.8% of parents returned their questionnaire. These return rates are superior to similar studies. Five strategies appeared important: (1) building positive relationships with key school personnel; (2) child-centred approaches to survey development; (3) comprehensive classroom management techniques to standardize and optimize group sessions; (4) extensive follow-up procedures for collecting survey items; and (5) a specially designed data management/monitoring system.

Conclusion: Sharing methodological approaches for obtaining high-quality data will ensure research opportunities within schools are maximized. These methodological issues have implications for planning, budgeting and implementing future research.

Human performance measures for interactive haptic-audio-visual interfaces

Virtual reality and simulation are becoming increasingly important in modern society and it is essential to improve our understanding of system usability and efficacy from the users’ perspective. This paper introduces a novel evaluation method designed to assess human user capability when undertaking technical and procedural training using virtual training systems. The evaluation method falls under the user-centred design and evaluation paradigm and draws on theories of cognitive, skillbased and affective learning outcomes. The method focuses on user interaction with haptic-audio-visual interfaces and the complexities related to variability in users’ performance, and the adoption and acceptance of the technologies. A large scale user study focusing on object assembly training tasks involving selecting, rotating, releasing, inserting and manipulating 3D objects was performed. The study demonstrated the advantages of the method in obtaining valuable multimodal information for accurate and comprehensive evaluation of virtual training system efficacy. The study investigated how well users learn, perform, adapt to and perceive the virtual training. The results of the study revealed valuable aspects of the design and evaluation of virtual training systems contributing to an improved understanding of more usable virtual training systems.