Dans cette thèse, nous avons proposé un modèle multi-échelle pour l'animation de rivière. Nous avons présenté un nouveau modèle pour chaque échelle. A l'échelle macro, nous avons proposé une méthode procédurale permettant de générer une rivière réaliste à la volée. A l'échelle méso nous avons amélioré un modèle phénoménologique basé sur une représentation vectorielle des ondes de choc près des obstacles, et proposé une methode pour la reconstruction adaptative de la surface de l'eau. A l'échelle micro, nous avons présenté une méthode adaptative pour texturer des surfaces de grande étendue avec des performances indépendantes de la scène. Nous avons également propos é une méthode d'advection de texture. Ces deux modèles reposent sur notre schéma d'échantillonnage adaptatif. En combinant ces modèles, nous avons pu animer des rivières de taille mondiale en temps réel, tout en étant contr?olable. Les performances de notre système sont indépendantes de la scène. La vitesse procédurale et l'échantillonage en espace écran permettent à notre système de fonctionner sur des domaines illimités. Les utilisateurs peuvent observer la rivière de très près ou de très loin à tout moment. Des vagues très détaillées peuvent être affichées. Les différents parties des rivières sont continues dans l'espace et dans le temps, même lors de l'exploration ou de l'édition de la rivière par un utilisateur. Cela signifie que l'utilisateur peut éditer les lits des rivières ou ajouter des îles à la volée sans interrompre l'animation. La vitesse de la rivière change dès que l'utilisateur en édite les caractéristiques, et l'utilisateur peut auss modifier son apparence avec des textures.

L'angiographie par rayons X est la modalité d'imagerie médicale la plus utilisée pour l'exploration des pathologies des vaisseaux coronariens. La routine clinique actuelle repose sur l'utilisation brute des images angiographiques. Pourtant, ces images présentent des défauts tels que le raccourcissement des longueurs, l'effet de grandissement ou la présence de superpositions. Ces faiblesses peuvent fausser le diagnostic et le choix thérapeutique. Nous proposons d'exploiter un nouveau mode d'acquisition angiographique, le mode rotationnel, pour produire des modélisations tridimensionnelles et dynamiques de l'arbre coronaire. Ces modélisations permettraient de s'affranchir des défauts intrinsèques aux images. Notre travail se compose de trois étapes. Dans un premier temps, une reconstruction 3D multi-oculaire donne un modèle statique des lignes centrales des artères coronaires, prenant en compte le mouvement respiratoire. Par la suite, un mouvement 4D des artères coronaires est determiné sur l'ensemble du cycle cardiaque. Enfin, la connaissance des mouvements respiratoire et cardiaque permet de réaliser la reconstruction tomographique des artères coronaires. Nous avons testé notre approche sur une base de 22 patients et avons proposé de nouveaux outils et applications cliniques à partir de ces modélisations tridimensionnelles et dynamiques. Ces outils diagnostiques ont été prototypés et feront l'objet d'une validation clinique.

Existing Human Computer Interaction (HCI) strategies are seriously limited by current technologies. These are neither sensitive nor accurate enough to respond to users' emotional states, the fundamental basis for effective communication in real time. This offered the challenge of investigating factors that would impact on the designing of effective and more emotionally intelligent interaction strategies for Companions. These were applied to a conceptual tool, the Affective Channel (AC), to endow Companions with emotional capabilities. This was implemented in the Wizard of Oz (WoZ) platform to evaluate Companions in real time. The WoZ is an experimental setup where existing immature technologies and a human operator combine to simulate Companion interaction with end users. In these aspects of my work is my original contribution to the HCI knowledge base. Experiments, focus groups and face to face interviews were carried out to ascertain users' perception and expectations of virtual agents. ‘Descriptors' thus identified formed the bases for the designing of user friendly Companions. Verbal and facial expressions data and other affective elements of effective human-companion interactionwere collected for use in the AC and the WoZ as stated above. Companion evaluations yielded the subsidiary contribution that Companions are perceived as empathetic, useful and trustworthy entities. Further, that they arouse positive emotions in children and also that they promote their learning improvement. These findings were the result of two experiments, one within subjects and one between subjects, conducted with thirty grade four pupils in a rural school in the poor Oaxaca region of Mexico.

In the past decade and more than any time before, new technologies have been broadly applied in various fields of interaction between human and machine. Despite many functionality studies, yet, how such technologies should be evaluated within the context of human computer interaction research remains unclear. This research aims at proposing a mechanism to evaluate/predict the design of user interfaces with their interacting components. At the first level of analysis, an original concept extracts the usability results of components, such as effectiveness, efficiency, adjusted satisfaction, and overall acceptability, for comparison in the fields of interest. At the second level of analysis, another original concept defines new metrics based on the level of complexity in interactions between input modality and feedback of performing a task, in the field of classical solid mechanics. Having these results, a set of hypotheses is provided to test if some common satisfaction criteria can be predicted from their correlations with the components of performance, complexity, and overall acceptability. In the context of this research, three multimodal applications are implemented and experimentally tested to study the quality of interactions through the proposed hypotheses: a) full-body gestures vs. mouse/keyboard, in a Box game; b) arm/hand gestures vs. three-dimensional haptic controller, in a Slingshot game; and c) hand/finger gestures vs. mouse/keyboard, in a Race game. Their graphical user interfaces are designed to cover some extents of static/dynamic gestures, pulse/continuous touch-based controls, and discrete/analog tasks measured. They are quantified based on a new definition termed index of complexity which represents a concept of effort in the domain of locomotion interaction. Single/compound devices are also defined and studied to evaluate the effect of user’s attention in multi-tasking interactions. The proposed method of investigation for usability is meant to assist human-computer interface developers to reach a proper overall acceptability, performance, and effort-based analyses prior to their final user interface design.

MENDES, Marília Soares. MALTU – um modelo para avaliação da interação em sistemas sociais a partir da linguagem textual do usuário. 2015. 199 f. Tese (Doutorado em Ciência da Computação)-Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, 2015. / Submitted by Vitor Campos (vitband@gmail.com) on 2016-09-27T23:24:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_tese_msmendes.pdf: 9165504 bytes, checksum: 35e2398a141e078cdbae6331e1173c8a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jairo Viana (jairo@ufc.br) on 2016-09-27T23:40:31Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_tese_msmendes.pdf: 9165504 bytes, checksum: 35e2398a141e078cdbae6331e1173c8a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-27T23:40:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_tese_msmendes.pdf: 9165504 bytes, checksum: 35e2398a141e078cdbae6331e1173c8a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / The field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has suggested various methods for evaluating systems in order to improve their usability and User eXperience (UX). The advent of Web 2.0 has allowed the development of applications marked by collaboration, communication and interaction among their users in a way and on a scale never seen before. Social Systems (SS) (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc.) are examples of such applications and have features such as: frequent exchange of messages, spontaneity and expression of feelings. The opportunities and challenges posed by these types of applications require the traditional evaluation methods to be reassessed, taking into consideration these new characteristics. For instance, the postings of users on SS reveal their opinions on various issues, including on what they think of the system. This work aims to test the hypothesis that the postings of users in SS provide relevant data for evaluation of the usability and of UX in SS. While researching through literature, we have not identified any evaluation model intending to collect and interpret texts from users in order to assess the user experience and system usability. Thus, this thesis proposes MALTU - Model for evaluation of interaction in social systems from the Users Textual Language. In order to provide a basis for the development of the proposed model, we conducted a study of how users express their opinions on the system in natural language. We extracted postings of users from four SS of different contexts. HCI experts classified, studied and processed such postings by using Natural Language Processing (PLN) techniques and data mining, and then analyzed them in order to obtain a generic model. The MALTU was applied in two SS: an entertainment and an educational SS. The results show that is possible to evaluate a system from the postings of users in SS. Such assessments are aided by extraction patterns related to the use, to the types of postings and to HCI factors used in system. / A área de Interação Humano-Computador (IHC) tem sugerido muitas formas para avaliar sistemas a fim de melhorar sua usabilidade e a eXperiência do Usuário (UX). O surgimento da web 2.0 permitiu o desenvolvimento de aplicações marcadas pela colaboração, comunicação e interatividade entre seus usuários de uma forma e em uma escala nunca antes observadas. Sistemas Sociais (SS) (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc.) são exemplos dessas aplicações e possuem características como: frequente troca de mensagens e expressão de sentimentos de forma espontânea. As oportunidades e os desafios trazidos por esses tipos de aplicações exigem que os métodos tradicionais de avaliação sejam repensados, considerando essas novas características. Por exemplo, as postagens dos usuários em SS revelam suas opiniões sobre diversos assuntos, inclusive sobre o que eles pensam do sistema em uso. Esta tese procura testar a hipótese de que as postagens dos usuários em SS fornecem dados relevantes para avaliação da Usabilidade e da UX (UUX) em SS. Durante as pesquisas realizadas na literatura, não foi identificado nenhum modelo de avaliação que tenha direcionado seu foco na coleta e análise das postagens dos usuários a fim de avaliar a UUX de um sistema em uso. Sendo assim, este estudo propõe o MALTU – Modelo para Avaliação da interação em sistemas sociais a partir da Linguagem Textual do Usuário. A fim de fornecer bases para o desenvolvimento do modelo proposto, foram realizados estudos de como os usuários expressam suas opiniões sobre o sistema em língua natural. Foram extraídas postagens de usuários de quatro SS de contextos distintos. Tais postagens foram classificadas por especialistas de IHC, estudadas e processadas utilizando técnicas de Processamento da Linguagem Natural (PLN) e mineração de dados e, analisadas a fim da obtenção de um modelo genérico. O MALTU foi aplicado em dois SS: um de entretenimento e um SS educativo. Os resultados mostram que é possível avaliar um sistema a partir das postagens dos usuários em SS. Tais avaliações são auxiliadas por padrões de extração relacionados ao uso, aos tipos de postagens e às metas de IHC utilizadas na avaliação do sistema.

A geração automatizada de Interfaces de Usuário (IU) é objeto de estudo há muitos anos. Desde a década de 80, dezenas de projetos foram desenvolvidos e várias soluções apresentadas ao mercado. Entretanto, mesmo com os avanços obtidos neste cenário, inúmeras dificuldades ainda continuam presentes no dia-a-dia dos desenvolvedores de sistemas. A necessidade de processos, sintaxes e linguagens proprietárias associado ao elevado esforço de configuração e à baixa reutilização de tecnologias são os principais problemas nessa área. Objetivando sanar essas dificuldades, este trabalho propõe uma solução diferenciada para o problema, a qual reutiliza e integra-se à maioria das tecnologias comumente presentes nos ambientes de desenvolvimento e que conta com um exclusivo sistema de configuração, capaz de minimizar o trabalho de geração das IU. Sendo um típico gerador baseado em modelos, o software proposto é chamado MERLIN, e objetiva automatizar completamente a geracão de interfaces CRUD, as quais estão presentes em até 30% dos sistemas que operam sobre banco de dados. Para alcançar este objetivo, o software aposta no uso intensivo de heurísticas e na formação de uma estrutura auto-contida e realimentada de configurações, a qual reside unicamente nas classes compiladas da aplicação. Completando a sua arquitetura, um processo de geração em tempo de execução inibe a produção de qualquer linha de código-fonte, o que evita a necessidade de refatoração ao longo da evolução dos sistemas. Com esses elementos em evidência e focando inicialmente a plataforma Java, sinaliza-se uma solução diferenciada, apta para ser utilizada em ambientes profissionais de desenvolvimento. / The automated generation of User Interfaces (UI) has been the object of study for many years. Since the 1980s, dozens of projects have been developed and various solutions presented to the market. However, even with the advances obtained under this scenario, innumerable difficulties still continue to present themselves in the daily routine of system developers. The demands of proprietary methodologies, syntaxes and languages, the high level of effort needed for configuration and low reuse of technologies are the main problems in the area. With the object of rectifying these difficulties, this work proposes a solution specific to the problem, which reuses and combines the majority of the technologies already existing in development environments and relies on an exclusive configuration system, capable to minimize the work of generating the UI. Being a typical model based generator, the software under consideration is called MERLIN, and has as its objective to completely automate the generation of CRUD interfaces, which are present in up to 30% of the systems that interact with data bases. To achieve this objective, the software relies on the intensive use of heuristics and the creation of a self contained configuration feedback structure, which exists solely in the compiled classes of the application. Completing this architecture, a process of execution time generation eliminates the need for any source code, which significantly reduces the costs of refactoring the code throughout the evolution of the systems. With these elements in evidence and focusing initially on the Java platform, indicates that this distinguished solution is ready for use in professional development environments.

A evolução das tecnologias móveis ampliou significativamente a possibilidade de inclusão digital das pessoas com deficiências em geral, permitindo a interação sem as barreiras de espaço e tempo. Dentre estas novas tecnologias está o tablet PC, considerado atualmente a tecnologia móvel mais implementada em instituições de ensino do mundo, devido à sua ampla capacidade de interatividade, flexibilidade, mobilidade, navegação pelos Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVAs), e acessibilidade de diferentes perfis de usuários. Entretanto, a maioria dos usuários com baixa visão (BV) tem encontrado dificuldades em navegar nos AVAs por meio desta tecnologia, tendo que fazer uso de Tecnologias Assistivas voltadas para os cegos. Muito embora as diretrizes utilizadas para a construção destas Interfaces Gráficas do Usuário (GUIs) baseiem-se nos preceitos do W3C e do Design Universal, este fato pode prejudicar sua condição, gerar frustração e, consequentemente, resultar na sua exclusão digital. Com isso, o objetivo desta pesquisa é melhorar as condições de usabilidade dos AVAs no tablet PC, através de uma sistemática estruturada que forneça diretrizes capazes de orientar os desenvolvedores a criarem GUIs pensando no usuário com BV. A metodologia utilizada baseou-se no AVA Moodle como cenário de uso para o estudo de caso, foi realizada em três etapas que incluíram especialistas web, assim como usuários com BV, levando ao desenvolvimento da sistemática. Como resultado final da sua validação, tem-se um Guia de Diretrizes voltado para a construção de GUIs acessíveis aos usuários com BV, no tablet PC. Conclui-se que esta sistemática possibilita ao desenvolvedor agrupar e conceber suas próprias recomendações, em forma de guia de diretrizes, capazes de orientá-lo no incremento de interfaces voltadas especificamente para um usuário típico definido, independente do cenário de uso estabelecido. Refletindo, desta forma, na garantia e qualidade de acesso deste usuário, e permitindo a melhoria do processo de implementação de projetos pelo desenvolvedor. / The evolution of mobile technologies has significantly broadened the digital inclusion possibility for persons with general disabilities, by providing interaction with no space and time barrier constraints. Among these new technologies, the Tablet PCs are currently deemed the most widely implemented mobile technology in teaching institutions worldwide due to their wide capacity of interactivity, flexibility, mobility, browsing through Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), and accessibility to different user profiles However, most Low Vision (LV) users have faced difficulties to browse through VLEs by means of this technology and must resort to Assistive Technologies aimed at blind persons. Although the guidelines employed for the construction of those Graphic User Interfaces (GUIs) are founded on the precepts of W3C and Universal Design, this fact may harm their condition, generate frustration and, consequently, result in their digital exclusion. This way, the objective of this research is to improve the VLE usability conditions on Tablet PCs through a structured systematic to provide guidelines capable of instructing developers to create GUIs with LV users in mind. The methodology employed is based on the VLE Moodle as the scenery used for the case study, was carried out in three stages and included Web experts as well as LV users, leading to the development of the systematic. As an end result of its validation, there is a Guidelines Guide aimed at the construction of GUIs that are accessible to LV users on Tablet PCs. It has been concluded that this systematic allows developers to group up and conceive their own recommendations in the form of a guidelines guide that are capable of instructing them in incrementing interfaces specifically aimed at a defined typical users regardless of the established scenery of use. This way, it would reflect as an access guarantee and quality for those users, and allow for improvements to the project implementation process by developers.

Digital services and devices are today more spread than ever, forming a basis for new innovations, even among ordinary people. And yet, producers of such services and devices are mostly men with programming skills. Women's participation in development and design of digital products is thus not yet as influential as that of men. An approach to this situation is to offer web-based environments for end-user development where people with no programming experiences have the opportunity to develop their own smartphone applications. The SATIN project, a collaboration between universities and IT-companies, has taken such an approach, with a focus on supporting female end-users. This project has been serving as a case in this research with the purpose of exploring and understanding end-user programming related to self-efficacy and female strategies. Experiences from being a member of the SATIN project are accounted for as well as results from qualitative observation studies capturing subjects’ reactions to the system. In the first set of observations, 9 subjects tested a mock-up version of the so-called SATIN editor, where the actual app building takes place. Later on a second set of observations with 11 subjects focused on how to support computer self-efficacy and end-user programming strategies that women prefer to a higher degree than men. Observations indicate that the women where as positive to making use of the editor as the men. The test subjects also showed signs of motivation as well as creativity while exploring the system. An observation related to design aspects of the system was that the quality of the components that form the smartphone apps seems to be crucial if the system is expected to truly support strategies that women request. Supporting women's own perceptions of self-efficacy related to developing computer-based systems is challenging, still indications of acceptance and enthusiasm for the system were observed. From a design perspective, using strategies and self-efficacy sources as an evaluation framework in the development process shows potential for improved design, and not only when designing for female users, but for diverse groups of users, hopefully paving the way for a more diverse community of producers of computer-based products. / SATIN 2 project

A evolução das tecnologias móveis ampliou significativamente a possibilidade de inclusão digital das pessoas com deficiências em geral, permitindo a interação sem as barreiras de espaço e tempo. Dentre estas novas tecnologias está o tablet PC, considerado atualmente a tecnologia móvel mais implementada em instituições de ensino do mundo, devido à sua ampla capacidade de interatividade, flexibilidade, mobilidade, navegação pelos Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVAs), e acessibilidade de diferentes perfis de usuários. Entretanto, a maioria dos usuários com baixa visão (BV) tem encontrado dificuldades em navegar nos AVAs por meio desta tecnologia, tendo que fazer uso de Tecnologias Assistivas voltadas para os cegos. Muito embora as diretrizes utilizadas para a construção destas Interfaces Gráficas do Usuário (GUIs) baseiem-se nos preceitos do W3C e do Design Universal, este fato pode prejudicar sua condição, gerar frustração e, consequentemente, resultar na sua exclusão digital. Com isso, o objetivo desta pesquisa é melhorar as condições de usabilidade dos AVAs no tablet PC, através de uma sistemática estruturada que forneça diretrizes capazes de orientar os desenvolvedores a criarem GUIs pensando no usuário com BV. A metodologia utilizada baseou-se no AVA Moodle como cenário de uso para o estudo de caso, foi realizada em três etapas que incluíram especialistas web, assim como usuários com BV, levando ao desenvolvimento da sistemática. Como resultado final da sua validação, tem-se um Guia de Diretrizes voltado para a construção de GUIs acessíveis aos usuários com BV, no tablet PC. Conclui-se que esta sistemática possibilita ao desenvolvedor agrupar e conceber suas próprias recomendações, em forma de guia de diretrizes, capazes de orientá-lo no incremento de interfaces voltadas especificamente para um usuário típico definido, independente do cenário de uso estabelecido. Refletindo, desta forma, na garantia e qualidade de acesso deste usuário, e permitindo a melhoria do processo de implementação de projetos pelo desenvolvedor. / The evolution of mobile technologies has significantly broadened the digital inclusion possibility for persons with general disabilities, by providing interaction with no space and time barrier constraints. Among these new technologies, the Tablet PCs are currently deemed the most widely implemented mobile technology in teaching institutions worldwide due to their wide capacity of interactivity, flexibility, mobility, browsing through Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), and accessibility to different user profiles However, most Low Vision (LV) users have faced difficulties to browse through VLEs by means of this technology and must resort to Assistive Technologies aimed at blind persons. Although the guidelines employed for the construction of those Graphic User Interfaces (GUIs) are founded on the precepts of W3C and Universal Design, this fact may harm their condition, generate frustration and, consequently, result in their digital exclusion. This way, the objective of this research is to improve the VLE usability conditions on Tablet PCs through a structured systematic to provide guidelines capable of instructing developers to create GUIs with LV users in mind. The methodology employed is based on the VLE Moodle as the scenery used for the case study, was carried out in three stages and included Web experts as well as LV users, leading to the development of the systematic. As an end result of its validation, there is a Guidelines Guide aimed at the construction of GUIs that are accessible to LV users on Tablet PCs. It has been concluded that this systematic allows developers to group up and conceive their own recommendations in the form of a guidelines guide that are capable of instructing them in incrementing interfaces specifically aimed at a defined typical users regardless of the established scenery of use. This way, it would reflect as an access guarantee and quality for those users, and allow for improvements to the project implementation process by developers.

A geração automatizada de Interfaces de Usuário (IU) é objeto de estudo há muitos anos. Desde a década de 80, dezenas de projetos foram desenvolvidos e várias soluções apresentadas ao mercado. Entretanto, mesmo com os avanços obtidos neste cenário, inúmeras dificuldades ainda continuam presentes no dia-a-dia dos desenvolvedores de sistemas. A necessidade de processos, sintaxes e linguagens proprietárias associado ao elevado esforço de configuração e à baixa reutilização de tecnologias são os principais problemas nessa área. Objetivando sanar essas dificuldades, este trabalho propõe uma solução diferenciada para o problema, a qual reutiliza e integra-se à maioria das tecnologias comumente presentes nos ambientes de desenvolvimento e que conta com um exclusivo sistema de configuração, capaz de minimizar o trabalho de geração das IU. Sendo um típico gerador baseado em modelos, o software proposto é chamado MERLIN, e objetiva automatizar completamente a geracão de interfaces CRUD, as quais estão presentes em até 30% dos sistemas que operam sobre banco de dados. Para alcançar este objetivo, o software aposta no uso intensivo de heurísticas e na formação de uma estrutura auto-contida e realimentada de configurações, a qual reside unicamente nas classes compiladas da aplicação. Completando a sua arquitetura, um processo de geração em tempo de execução inibe a produção de qualquer linha de código-fonte, o que evita a necessidade de refatoração ao longo da evolução dos sistemas. Com esses elementos em evidência e focando inicialmente a plataforma Java, sinaliza-se uma solução diferenciada, apta para ser utilizada em ambientes profissionais de desenvolvimento. / The automated generation of User Interfaces (UI) has been the object of study for many years. Since the 1980s, dozens of projects have been developed and various solutions presented to the market. However, even with the advances obtained under this scenario, innumerable difficulties still continue to present themselves in the daily routine of system developers. The demands of proprietary methodologies, syntaxes and languages, the high level of effort needed for configuration and low reuse of technologies are the main problems in the area. With the object of rectifying these difficulties, this work proposes a solution specific to the problem, which reuses and combines the majority of the technologies already existing in development environments and relies on an exclusive configuration system, capable to minimize the work of generating the UI. Being a typical model based generator, the software under consideration is called MERLIN, and has as its objective to completely automate the generation of CRUD interfaces, which are present in up to 30% of the systems that interact with data bases. To achieve this objective, the software relies on the intensive use of heuristics and the creation of a self contained configuration feedback structure, which exists solely in the compiled classes of the application. Completing this architecture, a process of execution time generation eliminates the need for any source code, which significantly reduces the costs of refactoring the code throughout the evolution of the systems. With these elements in evidence and focusing initially on the Java platform, indicates that this distinguished solution is ready for use in professional development environments.