Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-69). / The amount of information organizations possess now days is overwhelming and the need of being capable of extracting valuable knowledge from such large amount of information is imperative. This thesis presents a software tool capable of extracting valuable knowledge (e.g. expertise) of a scientific community, generating relationships among community members automatically and revealing these relationships through a visualization tool. The types of relationships that this tool reveals are of the form of "who knows what" and "who can collaborate with whom" (both based on areas of expertise). The work presented was conducted and evaluated within the context of research institutions. / by Jose Maria Gonzalez Pinto. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2003. / Pages 103-104 blank. "September 2003." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-88). / Invention is largely information driven. Everyone in a community of inventors is an aggregator of information relevant to invention. Sharing some of this information across a community of inventors will result in greater invention effectiveness at the individual and community levels. Sharing this information via an electronic database is an attractive proposition, but gaining attention and participation is difficult. Networked display devices can help foster awareness and participation in a community information sharing system. / Michael Rosenblatt. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-212). / Subjective and affective elements are well-known to influence human decision making. This dissertation presents a theoretical and empirical framework on how human decision makers' subjective experience and affective prediction influence their choice behavior under uncertainty, frames and emotions. The framework extends and integrates existing theories of prospect theory (PT) and reinforcement learning (RL), drawing on a growing literature offering the role of affect in decision making and the neural underpinnings of human decision behavior. The proposed Affective-Cognitive (AC) model extends Prospect Theory (PT)- based subjective value functions to model human experienced-utility and predicted-utility functions. The AC model assumes that the shapes (or parameters) of these subjective value functions dynamically vary with the decision makers affective states in sequential decision making. Human decision-making experiments were conducted to empirically infer how people adjust the parameters (i.e., shape and reference point) of their experienced-utility and predicted-utility functions in sequential decision-making situations involving incidental affective states (e.g., anger, fear, economic fear) and task-related confidence. I constructed a new model combining measures to evaluate risk preferences: behavioral choices, selfreported experience self-reported experience, self-reported predicted utility, self-reported confidence. The analysis results show how domain uncertainty, framing, and emotion state of decision makers influence their subjective experience and discriminability, affective prediction, optimal decisions and exploratory regulation. I found empirically that there were significant interaction effects of framing and emotion on risk preferences: negative emotions made people more risk-averse in face of gains. When it comes to losses, anger made people more risk-averse and fear more risk seeking. I also characterized how gender and emotion influence confidence and exploratory choice behavior. The theoretical analysis nicely supports empirical findings from human experiments. The new model provides a theory that better explain and simulate human behavior under uncertainty, frames and emotions. / by Hyung-il Ahn. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-135). / Inertial measurement components, which sense either acceleration or angular rate, are being embedded into common user interface devices more frequently as their cost continues to drop dramatically. These devices hold a number of advantages over other sensing technologies: they measure relevant parameters for human interfaces and can easily be embedded into wireless, mobile platforms. The work in this dissertation demonstrates that inertial measurement can be used to acquire rich data about human gestures, that we can derive efficient algorithms for using this data in gesture recognition, and that the concept of a parameterized atomic gesture recognition has merit. Further we show that a framework combining these three levels of description can be easily used by designers to create robust applications. A wireless six degree-of-freedom inertial measurement unit (IMU), with a cubical form factor (1.25 inches on a side) was constructed to collect the data, providing updates at 15 ms intervals. This data is analyzed for periods of activity using a windowed variance algorithm, whose thresholds can be set analytically. These segments are then examined by the gesture recognition algorithms, which are applied on an axis-by-axis basis to the data. The recognized gestures are considered atomic (i.e. cannot be decomposed) and are parameterized in terms of magnitude and duration. Given these atomic gestures, a simple scripting language is developed to allow designers to combine them into full gestures of interest. It allows matching of recognized atomic gestures to prototypes based on their type, parameters and time of occurrence. Because our goal is to eventually create stand-alone devices,the algorithms designed for this framework have both low algorithmic complexity and low latency, at the price of a small loss in generality. To demonstrate this system, the gesture recognition portion of (void*): A Cast of Characters, an installation which used a pair of hand-held IMUs to capture gestural inputs, was implemented using this framework. This version ran much faster than the original version (based on Hidden Markov Models), used less processing power, and performed at least as well. / by Ari Yosef Benbasat. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 53). / This thesis presents the hypothesis that aesthetic forms of expression - such as music, painting, video - can be used for direct information delivery. In contrast to text or verbal narrative techniques, which require a conscious act of transcoding, these aesthetic forms stimulate more direct, emotional response. Such a hypothesis could open a new channel for the delivery of various types of information, providing us, in situations of information overload, with a background information channel, leaving our foreground concentrated on the more thought-demanding tasks. To develop a viable system based on the notion of using aesthetic forms of expression for direct information delivery, we need to develop the elements from which the system would consist. This research defines the "emon", a small discrete unit of aesthetic expression, which generates an expected emotional response that can affect human behavior. The study is currently restricted to the domain of music, with candidate emons being 1-15 seconds long loops of audio that are currently assumed to be the only audio source perceived by the user. The emons are characterized as units of an independently describable value, without the necessity of connection / abstraction to / from other pattern units - i.e. if a specific emon is played we'll be able to relate to its qualities without accessing our knowledge about other emons. In this thesis I discuss the guidelines for emons' creation, describe the categorizations process, and report the results of emons' testing performed by a group of 14 users. Given the hypothesis that the musical emons (small musical patterns) can be used to provide cues that affect behavior, a need arises in a system that can provide a further validity to the usefulness of that approach. In the "Implementation" chapter I report the ongoing development of the GuideShoes wearable system, that assists user in navigating an open space, such as streets, by sequencing emons (musical patterns) as navigational cues. I also discuss the navigation tools written for this project. / by Paul Nemirovsky. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-144). / We present the design, implementation and deployment of a wearable computing research platform for measuring and analyzing human behavior in a variety of settings and applications. We propose the use of wearable sociometric badges capable of automatically measuring the amount of face-to-face interaction, conversational time, physical proximity to other people, and physical activity levels using social signals derived from vocal features, body motion, and relative location to capture individual and collective patterns of behavior. Our goal is to be able to understand how patterns of behavior shape individuals and organizations. We attempt to use on-body sensors in large groups of people for extended periods of time in naturalistic settings for the purpose of identifying, measuring, and quantifying social interactions, information flow, and organizational dynamics. We deployed this research platform in a group of 22 employees working in a real organization over a period of one month. Using these automatic measurements we were able to predict employees' self-assessment of productivity, job satisfaction, and their own perception of group interaction quality. An initial exploratory data analysis indicates that it is possible to automatically capture patterns of behavior using this wearable platform. / by Daniel Olguín Olguín. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-110). / A paradigm of micro-mechanical gates for field produceable logic is explored. A desktop manufacturing system is sought after which is capable of printing functional logic devices in the field. A logic scheme which induces non-linearities via geometrical properties is considered. Logic devices in two-phase air-water fluid-dynamic system at micron scales are constructed. A systematic study of non-linearities and relevant force fields in fluid dynamics at low Reynolds Number is undertaken. Viscous forces dominate inertial forces at low Reynolds Number flows at low pressure. Thus devices based on non-linear inertial effects at high Reynolds numbers can not be scaled down to micron-sizes. Bubble microfluidic logic gates are invented to tackle the above problem, thus producing low Reynolds Number logic in Newtonian fluids. Various devices including AND/OR gates, NOT gate, nonvolatile bistable memory, shift registers and ON/OFF flow valves, based on this new scheme of bubble bubble interaction in microfluidic devices to induce non-linearity, are designed and characterized. On-chip bubble generators and annihilators are used for encoding and destroying information in bubble logic devices. / (cont.) Applications of the above described logic devices as a flow control strategy for droplet based Lab-on-chip devices is explored. A simple to construct in-situ pressure sensor based on the principle of compressibility of an air bubble in microfluidic devices is invented. A scheme of controlled bubble/droplet movement in shift registers via pulsating pressure fields for precise temporal control of start of microfluidic reactions is proposed. Excimer laser micro-machining of boro-silicate glass is developed to direct write 3D microfluidic structures. Laser ablation process using a ArF based 193nm laser for machining is characterized using laser confocal microscopy techniques. Single bubble cavitation induced by laser pulses is developed as a process for writing micro-bubbles at precise locations in microfluidic channels. / by Manu Prakash. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2008. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 481-493). / Obesity is now considered a global epidemic and is predicted to become the number one preventive health threat in the industrialized world. Presently, over 60% of the U.S. adult population is overweight and 30% is obese. This is of concern because obesity is linked to leading causes of death, such as heart and pulmonary diseases, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. The dramatic rise in obesity rates is attributed to an environment that provides easy access to high caloric food and drink and promotes low levels of physical activity. Unfortunately, many people have a poor understanding of their own daily energy (im)balance: the number of calories they consume from food compared with what they expend through physical activity. Accelerometers offer promise as an objective measure of physical activity. In prior work they have been used to estimate energy expenditure and activity type. This work further demonstrates how wireless accelerometers can be used for real-time automatic recognition of physical activity type, intensity, and duration and estimation of energy expenditure. The parameters of the algorithms such as type of classifier/regressor, feature set, window length, signal preprocessing, sensor set utilized and their placement on the human body are selected by performing a set of incremental experiments designed to identify sets of parameters that may balance system usability with robust, real-time performance in low processing power devices such as mobile phones. The algorithms implemented are evaluated using a dataset of examples of 52 activities collected from 20 participants at a gymnasium and a residential home. The algorithms presented here may ultimately allow for the development of mobile phone-based just-in-time interventions to increase self-awareness of physical activity patterns and increases in physical activity levels in real-time during free-living that scale to large populations. / (cont.) KEYWORDS: Activity recognition, context awareness, energy expenditure, physical activity, wearable sensors, obesity, mobile phone, pattern recognition, machine learning, ubiquitous, pervasive, just-in-time. / by Emmanuel Munguia Tapia. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-219). / (cont.) In order to addressee the latter challenge I have decided to employ the digital network--a promising candidate for bringing a unique added value to the musical experience of collaborative group playing. I have chosen to address both challenges by embedding cognitive and educational concepts in newly designed interconnect instruments and applications, which led to the development of a number of such Interconnected Musical Networks (IMNs)--live performance systems that allow players to influence, share, and shape each other's music in real-time. In my thesis I discuss the concepts, motivations, and aesthetics of IMNs and review a number of historical and current technological landmarks that led the way to the development of the field. I then suggest a comprehensive theoretical framework for artistic interdependency, based on which I developed a set of instruments and activities in an effort to turn IMNs into an expressive and intuitive art form that provides meaningful learning experiences, engaging collaborative interactions, and worthy music. / Music today is more ubiquitous, accessible, and democratized than ever. Thanks to technologies such as high-end home studios, audio compression, and digital distribution, music now surrounds us in everyday life, almost every piece of music is a few minutes of download away, and almost any western musician, novice or expert, can compose, perform and distribute their music directly to their listeners from their home studios. But at the same time these technologies lead to some concerning social effects on the culture of consuming and creating music. Although music is available for more people, in more locations, and for longer periods of time, most listeners experience it in an incidental, unengaged, or utilitarian manner. On the creation side, home studios promote private and isolated practice of music making where hardly any musical instruments or even musicians are needed, and where the value of live group interaction is marginal. My thesis work attempts to use technology to address these same concerning effects that it had created by developing tools and applications that would address two main challenges: 1. Facilitating engaged and thoughtful as well as intuitive and expressive musical experiences for novices and children 2. Enhancing the inherent social attributes of music making by connecting to and intensifying the roots of music as a collaborative socialritual. My approach for addressing the first challenge is to study and model music cognition and education theories and to design algorithms that would bridge between the thoughtful and the expressive, allowing novices and children an access to meaningful and engaging musical experiences. / by Gil Weinberg. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2009. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-158). / Early in Tod Machover's opera Death and the Powers, the main character, Simon Powers, is subsumed into a technological environment of his own creation. The theatrical set comes alive in the form of robotic, visual, and sonic elements that allow the actor to extend his range and influence across the stage in unique and dynamic ways. The environment must compellingly assume the behavior and expression of the absent Simon. This thesis presents a new approach called Disembodied Performance that adapts ideas from affective psychology, cognitive science, and the theatrical tradition to create a framework for thinking about the translation of stage presence. An implementation of a system informed by this methodology is demonstrated. In order to distill the essence of this character, we recover performance parameters in real-time from physiological sensors, voice, and vision systems. This system allows the offstage actor to express emotion and interact with others onstage. The Disembodied Performance approach takes a new direction in augmented performance by employing a nonrepresentational abstraction of a human presence that fully translates a character into an environment. The technique and theory presented also have broad-reaching applications outside of theater for personal expression, telepresence, and storytelling. / Peter Alexander Torpey. / S.M.