Dynamic Response Optimization of Vehicles through Efficient Multibody Formulations and Automatic Differentiation Techniques

El diseño y desarrollo de sistemas de suspensión para vehículos se basa cada día más en el diseño por ordenador y en herramientas de análisis por ordenador, las cuales permiten anticipar problemas y resolverlos por adelantado. El comportamiento y las características dinámicas se calculan con precisión, bajo coste, y recursos y tiempos de cálculo reducidos. Sin embargo, existe una componente iterativa en el proceso, que requiere la definición manual de diseños a través de técnicas “prueba y error”. Esta Tesis da un paso hacia el desarrollo de un entorno de simulación eficiente capaz de simular, analizar y evaluar diseños de suspensiones vehiculares, y de mejorarlos hacia la solución optima mediante la modificación de los parámetros de diseño. La modelización mediante sistemas multicuerpo se utiliza aquí para desarrollar un modelo de autocar con 18 grados de libertad, de manera detallada y eficiente. La geometría y demás características de la suspensión se ajustan a las del vehículo real, así como los demás parámetros del modelo. Para simular la dinámica vehicular, se utiliza una formulación multicuerpo moderna y eficiente basada en las ecuaciones de Maggi, a la que se ha incorporado un visor 3D. Así, se consigue simular maniobras vehiculares en tiempos inferiores al tiempo real. Una vez que la dinámica está disponible, los análisis de sensibilidad son cruciales para una optimización robusta y eficiente. Para ello, se presenta una técnica matemática que permite derivar las variables dinámicas dentro de la formulación, de forma algorítmica, general, con la precisión de la maquina, y razonablemente eficiente: la diferenciación automática. Este método propaga las derivadas con respecto a las variables de diseño a través del código informático y con poca intervención del usuario. En contraste con otros enfoques en la bibliografía, generalmente particulares y limitados, se realiza una comparación de librerías, se desarrolla una formulación híbrida directa-automática para el cálculo de sensibilidades, y se presentan varios ejemplos reales. Finalmente, se lleva a cabo la optimización de la respuesta dinámica del vehículo citado. Se analizan cuatro tipos distintos de optimización: identificación de parámetros, optimización de la maniobrabilidad, optimización del confort y optimización multi-objetivo, todos ellos aplicados al diseño del autocar. Además de resultados analíticos y gráficos, se incluyen algunas consideraciones acerca de la eficiencia. En resumen, se mejora el comportamiento dinámico de vehículos por medio de modelos multicuerpo y de técnicas de diferenciación automática y optimización avanzadas, posibilitando un ajuste automático, preciso y eficiente de los parámetros de diseño. ABSTRACT Each day, the design and development of vehicle suspension systems relies more on computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering tools, which allow anticipating the problems and solving them ahead of time. Dynamic behavior and characteristics are thus simulated accurately and inexpensively with moderate computational times and resources. There is, however, an iterative component in the process, which involves the manual definition of designs in a trialand-error manner. This Thesis takes a step towards the development of an efficient simulation framework capable of simulating, analyzing and evaluating vehicle suspension designs, and automatically improving them by varying the design parameters towards the optimal solution. The multibody systems approach is hereby used to model a three-dimensional 18-degrees-of-freedom coach in a comprehensive yet efficient way. The suspension geometry and characteristics resemble the ones from the real vehicle, as do the rest of vehicle parameters. In order to simulate vehicle dynamics, an efficient, state-of-the-art multibody formulation based on Maggi’s equations is employed, and a three-dimensional graphics viewer is developed. As a result, vehicle maneuvers can be simulated faster than real-time. Once the dynamics are ready, a sensitivity analysis is crucial for a robust optimization. To that end, a mathematical technique is introduced, which allows differentiating the dynamic variables within the multibody formulation in a general, algorithmic, accurate to machine precision, and reasonably efficient way: automatic differentiation. This method propagates the derivatives with respect to the design parameters throughout the computer code, with little user interaction. In contrast with other attempts in the literature, mostly not generalpurpose, a benchmarking of libraries is carried out, a hybrid direct-automatic differentiation approach for the computation of sensitivities is developed, and several real-life examples are analyzed. Finally, a design optimization process of the aforementioned vehicle is carried out. Four different types of dynamic response optimization are presented: parameter identification, handling optimization, ride comfort optimization and multi-objective optimization; all of which are applied to the design of the coach example. Together with analytical and visual proof of the results, efficiency considerations are made. In summary, the dynamic behavior of vehicles is improved by using the multibody systems approach, along with advanced differentiation and optimization techniques, enabling an automatic, accurate and efficient tuning of design parameters.

A model to develop a platform for personalised health applications

Antecedentes Europa vive una situación insostenible. Desde el 2008 se han reducido los recursos de los gobiernos a raíz de la crisis económica. El continente Europeo envejece con ritmo constante al punto que se prevé que en 2050 habrá sólo dos trabajadores por jubilado [54]. A esta situación se le añade el aumento de la incidencia de las enfermedades crónicas, relacionadas con el envejecimiento, cuyo coste puede alcanzar el 7% del PIB de un país [51]. Es necesario un cambio de paradigma. Una nueva manera de cuidar de la salud de las personas: sustentable, eficaz y preventiva más que curativa. Algunos estudios abogan por el cuidado personalizado de la salud (pHealth). En este modelo las prácticas médicas son adaptadas e individualizadas al paciente, desde la detección de los factores de riesgo hasta la personalización de los tratamientos basada en la respuesta del individuo [81]. El cuidado personalizado de la salud está asociado a menudo al uso de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TICs) que, con su desarrollo exponencial, ofrecen oportunidades interesantes para la mejora de la salud. El cambio de paradigma hacia el pHealth está lentamente ocurriendo, tanto en el ámbito de la investigación como en la industria, pero todavía no de manera significativa. Existen todavía muchas barreras relacionadas a la economía, a la política y la cultura. También existen barreras puramente tecnológicas, como la falta de sistemas de información interoperables [199]. A pesar de que los aspectos de interoperabilidad están evolucionando, todavía hace falta un diseño de referencia especialmente direccionado a la implementación y el despliegue en gran escala de sistemas basados en pHealth. La presente Tesis representa un intento de organizar la disciplina de la aplicación de las TICs al cuidado personalizado de la salud en un modelo de referencia, que permita la creación de plataformas de desarrollo de software para simplificar tareas comunes de desarrollo en este dominio. Preguntas de investigación RQ1 >Es posible definir un modelo, basado en técnicas de ingeniería del software, que represente el dominio del cuidado personalizado de la salud de una forma abstracta y representativa? RQ2 >Es posible construir una plataforma de desarrollo basada en este modelo? RQ3 >Esta plataforma ayuda a los desarrolladores a crear sistemas pHealth complejos e integrados? Métodos Para la descripción del modelo se adoptó el estándar ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010por ser lo suficientemente general y abstracto para el amplio enfoque de esta tesis [25]. El modelo está definido en varias partes: un modelo conceptual, expresado a través de mapas conceptuales que representan las partes interesadas (stakeholders), los artefactos y la información compartida; y escenarios y casos de uso para la descripción de sus funcionalidades. El modelo fue desarrollado de acuerdo a la información obtenida del análisis de la literatura, incluyendo 7 informes industriales y científicos, 9 estándares, 10 artículos en conferencias, 37 artículos en revistas, 25 páginas web y 5 libros. Basándose en el modelo se definieron los requisitos para la creación de la plataforma de desarrollo, enriquecidos por otros requisitos recolectados a través de una encuesta realizada a 11 ingenieros con experiencia en la rama. Para el desarrollo de la plataforma, se adoptó la metodología de integración continua [74] que permitió ejecutar tests automáticos en un servidor y también desplegar aplicaciones en una página web. En cuanto a la metodología utilizada para la validación se adoptó un marco para la formulación de teorías en la ingeniería del software [181]. Esto requiere el desarrollo de modelos y proposiciones que han de ser validados dentro de un ámbito de investigación definido, y que sirvan para guiar al investigador en la búsqueda de la evidencia necesaria para justificarla. La validación del modelo fue desarrollada mediante una encuesta online en tres rondas con un número creciente de invitados. El cuestionario fue enviado a 134 contactos y distribuido en algunos canales públicos como listas de correo y redes sociales. El objetivo era evaluar la legibilidad del modelo, su nivel de cobertura del dominio y su potencial utilidad en el diseño de sistemas derivados. El cuestionario incluía preguntas cuantitativas de tipo Likert y campos para recolección de comentarios. La plataforma de desarrollo fue validada en dos etapas. En la primera etapa se utilizó la plataforma en un experimento a pequeña escala, que consistió en una sesión de entrenamiento de 12 horas en la que 4 desarrolladores tuvieron que desarrollar algunos casos de uso y reunirse en un grupo focal para discutir su uso. La segunda etapa se realizó durante los tests de un proyecto en gran escala llamado HeartCycle [160]. En este proyecto un equipo de diseñadores y programadores desarrollaron tres aplicaciones en el campo de las enfermedades cardio-vasculares. Una de estas aplicaciones fue testeada en un ensayo clínico con pacientes reales. Al analizar el proyecto, el equipo de desarrollo se reunió en un grupo focal para identificar las ventajas y desventajas de la plataforma y su utilidad. Resultados Por lo que concierne el modelo que describe el dominio del pHealth, la parte conceptual incluye una descripción de los roles principales y las preocupaciones de los participantes, un modelo de los artefactos TIC que se usan comúnmente y un modelo para representar los datos típicos que son necesarios formalizar e intercambiar entre sistemas basados en pHealth. El modelo funcional incluye un conjunto de 18 escenarios, repartidos en: punto de vista de la persona asistida, punto de vista del cuidador, punto de vista del desarrollador, punto de vista de los proveedores de tecnologías y punto de vista de las autoridades; y un conjunto de 52 casos de uso repartidos en 6 categorías: actividades de la persona asistida, reacciones del sistema, actividades del cuidador, \engagement" del usuario, actividades del desarrollador y actividades de despliegue. Como resultado del cuestionario de validación del modelo, un total de 65 personas revisó el modelo proporcionando su nivel de acuerdo con las dimensiones evaluadas y un total de 248 comentarios sobre cómo mejorar el modelo. Los conocimientos de los participantes variaban desde la ingeniería del software (70%) hasta las especialidades médicas (15%), con declarado interés en eHealth (24%), mHealth (16%), Ambient Assisted Living (21%), medicina personalizada (5%), sistemas basados en pHealth (15%), informática médica (10%) e ingeniería biomédica (8%) con una media de 7.25_4.99 años de experiencia en estas áreas. Los resultados de la encuesta muestran que los expertos contactados consideran el modelo fácil de leer (media de 1.89_0.79 siendo 1 el valor más favorable y 5 el peor), suficientemente abstracto (1.99_0.88) y formal (2.13_0.77), con una cobertura suficiente del dominio (2.26_0.95), útil para describir el dominio (2.02_0.7) y para generar sistemas más específicos (2_0.75). Los expertos también reportan un interés parcial en utilizar el modelo en su trabajo (2.48_0.91). Gracias a sus comentarios, el modelo fue mejorado y enriquecido con conceptos que faltaban, aunque no se pudo demonstrar su mejora en las dimensiones evaluadas, dada la composición diferente de personas en las tres rondas de evaluación. Desde el modelo, se generó una plataforma de desarrollo llamada \pHealth Patient Platform (pHPP)". La plataforma desarrollada incluye librerías, herramientas de programación y desarrollo, un tutorial y una aplicación de ejemplo. Se definieron cuatro módulos principales de la arquitectura: el Data Collection Engine, que permite abstraer las fuentes de datos como sensores o servicios externos, mapeando los datos a bases de datos u ontologías, y permitiendo interacción basada en eventos; el GUI Engine, que abstrae la interfaz de usuario en un modelo de interacción basado en mensajes; y el Rule Engine, que proporciona a los desarrolladores un medio simple para programar la lógica de la aplicación en forma de reglas \if-then". Después de que la plataforma pHPP fue utilizada durante 5 años en el proyecto HeartCycle, 5 desarrolladores fueron reunidos en un grupo de discusión para analizar y evaluar la plataforma. De estas evaluaciones se concluye que la plataforma fue diseñada para encajar las necesidades de los ingenieros que trabajan en la rama, permitiendo la separación de problemas entre las distintas especialidades, y simplificando algunas tareas de desarrollo como el manejo de datos y la interacción asíncrona. A pesar de ello, se encontraron algunos defectos a causa de la inmadurez de algunas tecnologías empleadas, y la ausencia de algunas herramientas específicas para el dominio como el procesado de datos o algunos protocolos de comunicación relacionados con la salud. Dentro del proyecto HeartCycle la plataforma fue utilizada para el desarrollo de la aplicación \Guided Exercise", un sistema TIC para la rehabilitación de pacientes que han sufrido un infarto del miocardio. El sistema fue testeado en un ensayo clínico randomizado en el cual a 55 pacientes se les dio el sistema para su uso por 21 semanas. De los resultados técnicos del ensayo se puede concluir que, a pesar de algunos errores menores prontamente corregidos durante el estudio, la plataforma es estable y fiable. Conclusiones La investigación llevada a cabo en esta Tesis y los resultados obtenidos proporcionan las respuestas a las tres preguntas de investigación que motivaron este trabajo: RQ1 Se ha desarrollado un modelo para representar el dominio de los sistemas personalizados de salud. La evaluación hecha por los expertos de la rama concluye que el modelo representa el dominio con precisión y con un balance apropiado entre abstracción y detalle. RQ2 Se ha desarrollado, con éxito, una plataforma de desarrollo basada en el modelo. RQ3 Se ha demostrado que la plataforma es capaz de ayudar a los desarrolladores en la creación de software pHealth complejos. Las ventajas de la plataforma han sido demostradas en el ámbito de un proyecto de gran escala, aunque el enfoque genérico adoptado indica que la plataforma podría ofrecer beneficios también en otros contextos. Los resultados de estas evaluaciones ofrecen indicios de que, ambos, el modelo y la plataforma serán buenos candidatos para poderse convertir en una referencia para futuros desarrollos de sistemas pHealth. ABSTRACT Background Europe is living in an unsustainable situation. The economic crisis has been reducing governments' economic resources since 2008 and threatening social and health systems, while the proportion of older people in the European population continues to increase so that it is foreseen that in 2050 there will be only two workers per retiree [54]. To this situation it should be added the rise, strongly related to age, of chronic diseases the burden of which has been estimated to be up to the 7% of a country's gross domestic product [51]. There is a need for a paradigm shift, the need for a new way of caring for people's health, shifting the focus from curing conditions that have arisen to a sustainable and effective approach with the emphasis on prevention. Some advocate the adoption of personalised health care (pHealth), a model where medical practices are tailored to the patient's unique life, from the detection of risk factors to the customization of treatments based on each individual's response [81]. Personalised health is often associated to the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), that, with its exponential development, offers interesting opportunities for improving healthcare. The shift towards pHealth is slowly taking place, both in research and in industry, but the change is not significant yet. Many barriers still exist related to economy, politics and culture, while others are purely technological, like the lack of interoperable information systems [199]. Though interoperability aspects are evolving, there is still the need of a reference design, especially tackling implementation and large scale deployment of pHealth systems. This thesis contributes to organizing the subject of ICT systems for personalised health into a reference model that allows for the creation of software development platforms to ease common development issues in the domain. Research questions RQ1 Is it possible to define a model, based on software engineering techniques, for representing the personalised health domain in an abstract and representative way? RQ2 Is it possible to build a development platform based on this model? RQ3 Does the development platform help developers create complex integrated pHealth systems? Methods As method for describing the model, the ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 framework [25] is adopted for its generality and high level of abstraction. The model is specified in different parts: a conceptual model, which makes use of concept maps, for representing stakeholders, artefacts and shared information, and in scenarios and use cases for the representation of the functionalities of pHealth systems. The model was derived from literature analysis, including 7 industrial and scientific reports, 9 electronic standards, 10 conference proceedings papers, 37 journal papers, 25 websites and 5 books. Based on the reference model, requirements were drawn for building the development platform enriched with a set of requirements gathered in a survey run among 11 experienced engineers. For developing the platform, the continuous integration methodology [74] was adopted which allowed to perform automatic tests on a server and also to deploy packaged releases on a web site. As a validation methodology, a theory building framework for SW engineering was adopted from [181]. The framework, chosen as a guide to find evidence for justifying the research questions, imposed the creation of theories based on models and propositions to be validated within a scope. The validation of the model was conducted as an on-line survey in three validation rounds, encompassing a growing number of participants. The survey was submitted to 134 experts of the field and on some public channels like relevant mailing lists and social networks. Its objective was to assess the model's readability, its level of coverage of the domain and its potential usefulness in the design of actual, derived systems. The questionnaires included quantitative Likert scale questions and free text inputs for comments. The development platform was validated in two scopes. As a small-scale experiment, the platform was used in a 12 hours training session where 4 developers had to perform an exercise consisting in developing a set of typical pHealth use cases At the end of the session, a focus group was held to identify benefits and drawbacks of the platform. The second validation was held as a test-case study in a large scale research project called HeartCycle the aim of which was to develop a closed-loop disease management system for heart failure and coronary heart disease patients [160]. During this project three applications were developed by a team of programmers and designers. One of these applications was tested in a clinical trial with actual patients. At the end of the project, the team was interviewed in a focus group to assess the role the platform had within the project. Results For what regards the model that describes the pHealth domain, its conceptual part includes a description of the main roles and concerns of pHealth stakeholders, a model of the ICT artefacts that are commonly adopted and a model representing the typical data that need to be formalized among pHealth systems. The functional model includes a set of 18 scenarios, divided into assisted person's view, caregiver's view, developer's view, technology and services providers' view and authority's view, and a set of 52 Use Cases grouped in 6 categories: assisted person's activities, system reactions, caregiver's activities, user engagement, developer's activities and deployer's activities. For what concerns the validation of the model, a total of 65 people participated in the online survey providing their level of agreement in all the assessed dimensions and a total of 248 comments on how to improve and complete the model. Participants' background spanned from engineering and software development (70%) to medical specialities (15%), with declared interest in the fields of eHealth (24%), mHealth (16%), Ambient Assisted Living (21%), Personalized Medicine (5%), Personal Health Systems (15%), Medical Informatics (10%) and Biomedical Engineering (8%) with an average of 7.25_4.99 years of experience in these fields. From the analysis of the answers it is possible to observe that the contacted experts considered the model easily readable (average of 1.89_0.79 being 1 the most favourable scoring and 5 the worst), sufficiently abstract (1.99_0.88) and formal (2.13_0.77) for its purpose, with a sufficient coverage of the domain (2.26_0.95), useful for describing the domain (2.02_0.7) and for generating more specific systems (2_0.75) and they reported a partial interest in using the model in their job (2.48_0.91). Thanks to their comments, the model was improved and enriched with concepts that were missing at the beginning, nonetheless it was not possible to prove an improvement among the iterations, due to the diversity of the participants in the three rounds. From the model, a development platform for the pHealth domain was generated called pHealth Patient Platform (pHPP). The platform includes a set of libraries, programming and deployment tools, a tutorial and a sample application. The main four modules of the architecture are: the Data Collection Engine, which allows abstracting sources of information like sensors or external services, mapping data to databases and ontologies, and allowing event-based interaction and filtering, the GUI Engine, which abstracts the user interface in a message-like interaction model, the Workow Engine, which allows programming the application's user interaction ows with graphical workows, and the Rule Engine, which gives developers a simple means for programming the application's logic in the form of \if-then" rules. After the 5 years experience of HeartCycle, partially programmed with pHPP, 5 developers were joined in a focus group to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the platform. The view that emerged from the training course and the focus group was that the platform is well-suited to the needs of the engineers working in the field, it allowed the separation of concerns among the different specialities and it simplified some common development tasks like data management and asynchronous interaction. Nevertheless, some deficiencies were pointed out in terms of a lack of maturity of some technological choices, and for the absence of some domain-specific tools, e.g. for data processing or for health-related communication protocols. Within HeartCycle, the platform was used to develop part of the Guided Exercise system, a composition of ICT tools for the physical rehabilitation of patients who suffered from myocardial infarction. The system developed using the platform was tested in a randomized controlled clinical trial, in which 55 patients used the system for 21 weeks. The technical results of this trial showed that the system was stable and reliable. Some minor bugs were detected, but these were promptly corrected using the platform. This shows that the platform, as well as facilitating the development task, can be successfully used to produce reliable software. Conclusions The research work carried out in developing this thesis provides responses to the three three research questions that were the motivation for the work. RQ1 A model was developed representing the domain of personalised health systems, and the assessment of experts in the field was that it represents the domain accurately, with an appropriate balance between abstraction and detail. RQ2 A development platform based on the model was successfully developed. RQ3 The platform has been shown to assist developers create complex pHealth software. This was demonstrated within the scope of one large-scale project, but the generic approach adopted provides indications that it would offer benefits more widely. The results of these evaluations provide indications that both the model and the platform are good candidates for being a reference for future pHealth developments.

BioMet®Phon: A system to monitor phonation quality in the clinics

BioMet®Phon is a software application developed for the characterization of voice in voice quality evaluation. Initially it was conceived as plain research code to estimate the glottal source from voice and obtain the biomechanical parameters of the vocal folds from the spectral density of the estimate. This code grew to what is now the Glottex®Engine package (G®E). Further demands from users in laryngology and speech therapy fields instantiated the development of a specific Graphic User Interface (GUI’s) to encapsulate user interaction with the G®E. This gave place to BioMet®Phon, an application which extracts the glottal source from voice and offers a complete parameterization of this signal, including distortion, cepstral, spectral, biomechanical, time domain, contact and tremor parameters. The semantic capabilities of biomechanical parameters are discussed. Study cases from its application to the field of laryngology and speech therapy are given and discussed. Validation results in voice pathology detection are also presented. Applications to laryngology, speech therapy, and monitoring neurological deterioration in the elder are proposed.

Análisis de usabilidad y aplicación de los resultados en el desarrollo de plataformas web

Este trabajo trata cómo se pueden aplicar las técnicas de análisis de usabilidad al desarrollo de plataformas web. Actualmente es común que los servicios sean ofrecidos mediante plataformas web para un grupo muy heterogéneo de personas. Por otra parte, los análisis de usabilidad son una herramienta muy útil para conocer cómo interactúan las personas con los ordenadores y mejorar el diseño de las aplicaciones. Realizar un buen diseño permite mejorar la experiencia de usuario, factor fundamental para el éxito de cualquier producto que requiera interacción con el usuario. A continuación se describen las diferentes fases de los test de usabilidad y se detalla cómo han sido aplicadas durante el desarrollo del proyecto. Finalmente, se presentarán los resultados obtenidos durante la evaluación de la plataforma y el análisis de los mismos indicando cómo han afectado al diseño de la plataforma. ---ABSTRACT---This document discusses how to apply usability test techniques over web platform development. Nowadays, it is common that services are offered through web platforms for a large group of heterogeneous people. Moreover, usability tests are a very useful tool to understand human-computer interaction and improve the design of the applications. A good design can improve user experience, which is essential for the success of any product that requires user interaction. The following pages describes the different phases of usability testing and detail how these have been applied during the development of the project. Finally, the results obtained during the platform evaluation are presented and analysed, explaining how they have affected the design of the platform.

Ampliación y mejora de aplicativo de análisis forense de imágenes

Ampliación de software dedicado al análisis de imágenes mediante la introducción de nuevas opciones en el procesamiento de video digital, mejoras en la interacción con el usuario. Para ello se ha estudiado el funcionamiento de la aplicación, integrando el lenguaje Python como herramienta de gestión y ejecución de la aplicación. En esta parte de la aplicación se ha integrado: - Traducción de la UI a una versión castellana. - Modificación y eliminación de cualquier filtro añadido para el procesamiento de video, no únicamente el último. - Descripciones de puntero y en la barra de estado de elementos de la aplicación. - Iconos en la barra de herramientas de los filtros añadidos más importantes. Por la otra parte, la del tratamiento digital de video, Avisynth se dispone como el eje de estudio, el cuál ejecuta sobre lenguaje de bajo nivel (C++) las operaciones pertinentes a través de librerías de enlace dinámico o *.dll. Las nuevas funcionalidades son: Convolución matricial, filtro de media adaptativa, DCT, ajustes de video generales, en formato RGB o YUV, rotaciones, cambios de perspectiva y filtrado en frecuencia. ABSTRACT. Improvement about a digital image processing software, creating new options in digital video processing or the user interaction. For this porpuse, we have integrated the application language,Python, as the tool to the application management and execution. In this part of the application has been integrated: - Translation of the UI: Spanish version. - Modifying and removing any added filter for video processing, not just the last. - Descriptions for the pointer and the status bar of the application. - New icons on the toolbar of the most important filters added. On the other hand, Avisynth was used tool for the digital video processing, which runs on low-level language (C ++) for a quickly and to improve the video operations. The new introduced filters are: Matrix Convolution, adaptive median filter, DCT, general video settings on RGB or YUV format, rotations, changes in perspective and frequency filtering.

Interacción desde dispositivos Android vía Bluetooth, con juguete teledirigido, para su uso por personas con discapacidad

El Proyecto Fin de Carrera, con título, "Interacción desde dispositivos Android vía Bluetooth, con juguete teledirigido, para su uso por personas con discapacidad" pretende completar la primera versión de la aplicación sobre dispositivo Android para manejar un juguete teledirigido añadiendo nuevas formas de interactuar con el dispositivo Android. Para este caso, el juguete teledirigido es el mismo: el robot esférico llamado Sphero. Dicho robot posee una interfaz a través de la cual puede recibir instrucciones, y mediante las cuales, se puede poner en movimiento o iluminarse con diferentes colores. Esta ampliación facilitará la interacción del usuario con el dispositivo Android, además de ampliar la funcionalidad hacia la inversa: recibir los movimientos del robot Sphero en el dispositivo Android cuando es manejado con la mano. Completando la primera versión, como cumplimiento de este Proyecto Fin de Carrera, se han realizado una serie de mandos nuevos, los cuales abarcan desde el manejo del robot por instrucciones de voz, movimientos del dispositivo Android desde el que se ejecuta, describir una trayectoria dibujada previamente en el dispositivo Android, o, realizar una serie de movimientos corregidos mediante la aplicación gracias a los límites de movimientos para un usuario concreto que pueden introducirse. Además, completando lo anteriormente escrito, se ha desarrollado una aplicación web que registrará todos los datos de uso del juguete, la cual, explota una base de datos que almacena toda interacción con el juguete. Estos datos estarán asociados a un usuario, debido a que la aplicación Android debe perfilarse para el uso de un usuario concreto. El perfilado de usuario se ha completado añadiendo una serie de información que puede ser útil para la persona que analice el comportamiento de una persona con discapacidad que utilice la aplicación. Por último, se ha realizado un estudio de elementos externos que puedan facilitar la interacción con los dispositivos Android a personas que sufran alguna discapacidad. ABSTRACT. The Thesis, titled "Interaction from Android devices via Bluetooth, with remote control toy, for use by people with disabilities" project aims to complete the first version of the application on Android device to manage a remote control toy adding new ways of interacting to Android device. For this case, the remote control toy is the same: the spherical robot called Sphero. This robot has an interface through which it can receive instructions, and by means of which can be set in motion or illuminated with different colors. This expansion will facilitate user interaction with the Android device, and extend the functionality to reverse: receiving Sphero robot movements in the Android device when handled by hand. Completing the first version, in fulfillment of this Thesis, there have been a number of new controls, which range from control of robot by voice instructions, movements Android device from which it runs, describe a path drawn previously on your Android device, or perform a series of movements corrected by applying through limits of movement for a particular user can be made. Besides completing the above written, has developed a web application that will record all data on use of the toy, which exploits a database that stores all interaction with the toy. These data will be associated with a user, because the Android application should be outlined for the use of a particular user. The user profile is completed by adding a range of information that can be useful for the person to analyze the behavior of a disabled person to use the application. Finally, a study was made of external elements that can facilitate interaction with Android devices to people who suffer from a disability.

Architecture of a multi-modal dialogue system oriented to multilingual question-answering

In this paper, a proposal of a multi-modal dialogue system oriented to multilingual question-answering is presented. This system includes the following ways of access: voice, text, avatar, gestures and signs language. The proposal is oriented to the question-answering task as a user interaction mechanism. The proposal here presented is in the first stages of its development phase and the architecture is presented for the first time on the base of the experiences in question-answering and dialogues previously developed. The main objective of this research work is the development of a solid platform that will permit the modular integration of the proposed architecture.

Visual data mining: integrating machine learning with information visualization

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. Most existing systems concentrate either on mining algorithms or on visualization techniques. Though visual methods developed in information visualization have been helpful, for improved understanding of a complex large high-dimensional dataset, there is a need for an effective projection of such a dataset onto a lower-dimension (2D or 3D) manifold. This paper introduces a flexible visual data mining framework which combines advanced projection algorithms developed in the machine learning domain and visual techniques developed in the information visualization domain. The framework follows Shneiderman’s mantra to provide an effective user interface. The advantage of such an interface is that the user is directly involved in the data mining process. We integrate principled projection methods, such as Generative Topographic Mapping (GTM) and Hierarchical GTM (HGTM), with powerful visual techniques, such as magnification factors, directional curvatures, parallel coordinates, billboarding, and user interaction facilities, to provide an integrated visual data mining framework. Results on a real life high-dimensional dataset from the chemoinformatics domain are also reported and discussed. Projection results of GTM are analytically compared with the projection results from other traditional projection methods, and it is also shown that the HGTM algorithm provides additional value for large datasets. The computational complexity of these algorithms is discussed to demonstrate their suitability for the visual data mining framework.

Automated mapping of environmental variables from a SEIS or SISE perspective

The INTAMAP FP6 project has developed an interoperable framework for real-time automatic mapping of critical environmental variables by extending spatial statistical methods and employing open, web-based, data exchange protocols and visualisation tools. This paper will give an overview of the underlying problem, of the project, and discuss which problems it has solved and which open problems seem to be most relevant to deal with next. The interpolation problem that INTAMAP solves is the generic problem of spatial interpolation of environmental variables without user interaction, based on measurements of e.g. PM10, rainfall or gamma dose rate, at arbitrary locations or over a regular grid covering the area of interest. It deals with problems of varying spatial resolution of measurements, the interpolation of averages over larger areas, and with providing information on the interpolation error to the end-user. In addition, monitoring network optimisation is addressed in a non-automatic context.

Document retrieval based on a cognitive model of dialogue

Owing to the rise in the volume of literature, problems arise in the retrieval of required information. Various retrieval strategies have been proposed, but most of that are not flexible enough for their users. Specifically, most of these systems assume that users know exactly what they are looking for before approaching the system, and that users are able to precisely express their information needs according to l aid- down specifications. There has, however, been described a retrieval program THOMAS which aims at satisfying incompletely- defined user needs through a man- machine dialogue which does not require any rigid queries. Unlike most systems, Thomas attempts to satisfy the user's needs from a model which it builds of the user's area of interest. This model is a subset of the program's "world model" - a database in the form of a network where the nodes represent concepts since various concepts have various degrees of similarities and associations, this thesis contends that instead of models which assume equal levels of similarities between concepts, the links between the concepts should have values assigned to them to indicate the degree of similarity between the concepts. Furthermore, the world model of the system should be structured such that concepts which are related to one another be clustered together, so that a user- interaction would involve only the relevant clusters rather than the entire database such clusters being determined by the system, not the user. This thesis also attempts to link the design work with the current notion in psychology centred on the use of the computer to simulate human cognitive processes. In this case, an attempt has been made to model a dialogue between two people - the information seeker and the information expert. The system, called Thomas-II, has been implemented and found to require less effort from the user than Thomas.

Adapting workflows to intelligent environments

Intelligent environments aim at supporting the user in executing her everyday tasks, e.g. by guiding her through a maintenance or cooking procedure. This requires a machine processable representation of the tasks for which workflows have proven an efficient means. The increasing number of available sensors in intelligent environments can facilitate the execution of workflows. The sensors can help to recognize when a user has finished a step in the workflow and thus to automatically proceed to the next step. This can heavily reduce the amount of required user interaction. However, manually specifying the conditions for triggering the next step in a workflow is very cumbersome and almost impossible for environments which are not known at design time. In this paper, we present a novel approach for learning and adapting these conditions from observation. We show that the learned conditions can even outperform the quality as conditions manually specified by workflow experts. Thus, the presented approach is very well suited for automatically adapting workflows in intelligent environments and can in that way increase the efficiency of the workflow execution. © 2011 IEEE.

The usability of semantic search tools:a review

The goal of semantic search is to improve on traditional search methods by exploiting the semantic metadata. In this paper, we argue that supporting iterative and exploratory search modes is important to the usability of all search systems. We also identify the types of semantic queries the users need to make, the issues concerning the search environment and the problems that are intrinsic to semantic search in particular. We then review the four modes of user interaction in existing semantic search systems, namely keyword-based, form-based, view-based and natural language-based systems. Future development should focus on multimodal search systems, which exploit the advantages of more than one mode of interaction, and on developing the search systems that can search heterogeneous semantic metadata on the open semantic Web.

Exploring the integration of data mining and data visualization

Due to the rapid advances in computing and sensing technologies, enormous amounts of data are being generated everyday in various applications. The integration of data mining and data visualization has been widely used to analyze these massive and complex data sets to discover hidden patterns. For both data mining and visualization to be effective, it is important to include the visualization techniques in the mining process and to generate the discovered patterns for a more comprehensive visual view. In this dissertation, four related problems: dimensionality reduction for visualizing high dimensional datasets, visualization-based clustering evaluation, interactive document mining, and multiple clusterings exploration are studied to explore the integration of data mining and data visualization. In particular, we 1) propose an efficient feature selection method (reliefF + mRMR) for preprocessing high dimensional datasets; 2) present DClusterE to integrate cluster validation with user interaction and provide rich visualization tools for users to examine document clustering results from multiple perspectives; 3) design two interactive document summarization systems to involve users efforts and generate customized summaries from 2D sentence layouts; and 4) propose a new framework which organizes the different input clusterings into a hierarchical tree structure and allows for interactive exploration of multiple clustering solutions.

Avaliação de usabilidade em materiais interativos de ensino a distância da UFRN-SEDIS

This study aims to assess the usability of Interactive Materials developed for the courses offered by UFRN SEDIS the modality of distance education (DE), using the techniques of focus group cooperative evaluation and assessment of satisfaction. The Interactive Materials are intended to serve as an avenue where the course content reaches the student in an educational, stimulating and self-instructive enough for the student to engage and find no difficulty in using it so. After the survey data in this context were selected four Interactive Materials ("Introduction to Applied Calculus", "Science, Technology and Society", "studies the Semi-Arid" and "Cultural Geography") that adopt the framework established by UFRN for SEDIS be evaluated for their usability. Initially, a preliminary test was conducted from cooperative assessment with a student interacting with the four learning objects in order to reveal and map the major failures of usability, supporting deeper questions later. The recordings of this preliminary test were analyzed by a focus group composed of two graphic designers and two multimedia designers, and developers responsible for these objects, which helped to analyze the gap between "what was designed" and "as was used "structuring and supplementing the roadmap for cooperative evaluation and assessment of subsequent satisfaction. The cooperative evaluation was applied individually to ten students of undergraduate UFRN that tested each of the four materials. At the end, every student completed a questionnaire assessing satisfaction form adapted Wanted (Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction). The analysis of the data collected in this study revealed positive, negative and notes to be considered to guide the future development of Interactive Materials, in the context of UFRN SEDIS, feedback to the process of design and evaluation with user participation

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.