Context: In recent years, everyone is completely relying on using computers and smartphones in our daily activities. Augmented Reality will superimpose virtual and computer-generated information on top of the real world. Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE) team is planning to use Augmented Reality applications on a real construction site to track the details of the vehicles without going to the laboratory. An Augmented reality application is developed for Microsoft HoloLensand Mobile device and the user experience is evaluated. This research has been conducted at PDRL-BTH, in collaboration with VCE. Objectives: In this research, the key attributes are collected, which should be displayed in both the devices and compare the user experience using the user satisfaction score. Furthermore, this research involves exploring and evaluating the difference in the user experience between both the devices. Methods: In this study first an interview is carried out with the design engineers of the VCE team. Some open-ended questions were asked to the VCE team. The information required from the VCE team is collected and documented and further an experiment on the user experience has been conducted to calculate the User Satisfaction Score between the Microsoft HoloLens and Mobile device. After the experiment, the significant difference has been measured using statistical techniques among the two devices. To measure the size of the difference Cohen’s D effect size is used. Results: The significant difference between the User Satisfaction Score of the two devices has been done using T-test. The results state that the significant value is less than 0.05 and hence the null hypothesis is rejected. The measurable difference states that Microsoft HoloLens has a better user interface than the Mobile device with respect to the user satisfaction Score. Conclusions: After obtaining the results and analyzing the data, we conclude that there is a significant difference in the user experience of Microsoft HoloLens when compared to Mobile device. We also conclude that Microsoft HoloLens has better user experience when compared to the Mobile device.

This dissertation is focused on studying transport behavior in vapor chambers at ultra-thin form factors so that their use as heat spreaders can be extended to applications with extreme space constraints. Both the steady-state and transient thermal transport behaviors of vapor chambers are studied. The steady-state section presents an experimental characterization technique, methodologies for the design of the vapor chamber wick structure, and a working fluid selection procedure. The transient section develops a low-cost, 3D, transient semi-analytical transport model, which is used to explore the transient thermal behavior of thin vapor chambers: 1) The key mechanisms governing the transient behavior are identified and experimentally validated; 2) the transient performance of a vapor chamber relative to a copper heat spreader of the same external dimensions is explored and key performance thresholds are identified; and 3) practices are developed for the design of vapor chambers under transient conditions. These analyses have been tailored to ultra-thin vapor chamber geometries, focusing on the application of heat spreading in mobile electronic devices. Compared to the conventional scenarios of use for vapor chambers, this application is uniquely characterized by compact spaces, low and transient heat input, and heat rejection via natural convection.

<p>Developing a model of a service system and mobile units including cellphone, PDA, Laptop is an important preliminary step of designing the systems which could provide these units some convenient and entertainment services through common short range communication like blue tooth, wireless LAN, etc. </p><p>In this project, an ontology is created to represent this model. Meanwhile, some basic service rules are also programmed and combined with this ontology can be used to simulate some interactions between items inside this model. </p><p>The description of this model (ontology) has been made through Protégé and demonstrated by using its graphical interface. The rules have been created by using Jess and implemented with the ontology by using JessTab.</p>

In this thesis, an emergency management system taking advantage of mobile computing and its awareness on context is provided. The framework primarily aims to create an infrastructure for acquiring implicit and explicit data about an emergency situation by using capabilities of smart mobile devices and converting them into value-added information to be used in phases of emergency management. In addition to conceptual description of the framework, a real prototype implementation is developed and successful application of the framework is demonstrated. Sample cases are analyzed in conjunction with the prototype and an experiment for reporting an emergency situation is carried out by a group of participants in order to demonstrate the applicability and feasibility of the framework. Data collected during the experiment are examined in order to determine the advantages of the proposed system in comparison with traditional emergency reporting efforts.

In this thesis work, a certificate based authentication model supported by mobile devices is provided for ubiquitous computing environments. The model primarily aims to create an infrastructure for controlling and regulating access requests through mobile devices to local resources and services. The model also allows users from different domains to use local resources and services within the scope of agreements between domains. In addition to conceptual description of the model, a real prototype implementation is developed and successful application of the model is demonstrated. Within the prototype implementation, a mobile application is developed for access requests and sensors are used as representative local resources. Sample cases applied on the prototype demonstrate applicability and feasibility of the model.

The increasing ubiquity of networked mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs has created new opportunities for the transmission and display of multimedia content. However, any mobile device has inherent resource constraints: low network bandwidth, small screen sizes, limited input methods, and low commitment viewing. Mobile systems that provide information display and access thus need to mitigate these various constraints. Despite progress in information retrieval and content recommendation, there has been less focus on issues arising from a network-oriented and mobile perspective. This dissertation investigates a coordinated design approach to networked multimedia on mobile devices, and considers the abovementioned system perspectives. Within the context of accessing news video on mobile devices, the goal is to provide a cognitively palatable stream of videos and a seamless, low-latency user experience. Mixed-initiative---a method whereby intelligent services and users collaborate efficiently to achieve the user's goals, is the cornerstone of the system design and integrates user relevance feedback with a content recommendation engine and a content- and network-aware video buffer prefetching technique. These various components have otherwise been considered independently in other prior system designs. To overcome limited interactivity, a mixed-initiative user interface was used to present a sequence of news video clips to the user, along with operations to vote-up or vote-down a video to indicate its relevance. On-screen gesture equivalents of these operations were also implemented to reduce user interface elements occupying the screen. Semantic relevancy was then improved by extracting and indexing the content of each video clip as text features, and using a Na"ive Bayesian content recommendation strategy that harnessed the user relevance feedback to tailor the subsequent video recommendations. With the system's knowledge of relevant videos, a content-aware video buffer prefetching scheme was then integrated, using the abovementioned feedback to lower the user perceived latency on the client-end. As an information retrieval system consists of many interacting components, a client-server video streaming model is first developed for clarity and simplicity. Using a CNN news video clip database, experiments were then conducted using this model to simulate user scenarios. As the aim of improving semantic relevancy sometimes opposes user interface tools for interactivity and user perceived latency, a quantitative evaluation was done to observe the tradeoffs between bandwidth, semantic relevance, and user perceived latency. Performance tradeoffs involving semantic relevancy and user perceived latency were then predicted. In addition, complementary human user subjective tests are conducted with actual mobile phone hardware running on the Google Android platform. These experiments suggest that a mixed-initiative approach is helpful for recommending news video content on a mobile device for overcoming the mobile limitations of user interface tools for interactivity and client-end perceived latency. Users desired interactivity and responsiveness while viewing videos, and were willing to sacrifice some content relevancy in order gain lower perceived latency. Recommended future work includes expanding the content recommendation to incorporate viewing data from a large population, and the creation of a global hybrid content-based and collaborative filtering algorithm for better results. Also, based on existing user behaviour, users were reluctant to provide more input than necessary. Additional user experiments can be designed to quantify user attention and interest during video watching on a mobile device, and for better definition and incorporation of implicit user feedback.

Innovative mobile Endgeräte und Applikationen durchdringen nicht mehr nur das Berufs- und Privatleben, sondern finden auch zunehmend Einsatz in der Aus- und Fortbildung. Dies gilt sowohl in Hinblick auf das „Lifelong Learning“ als auch in der schulischen und universitären Ausbildung. Neue Regelungen zu Bachelor- und Masterprogrammen, Lehrformen wie Gruppenarbeiten und die zunehmende Mobilität der Studierenden verlangen nach neuen Lernmedien und Lehrkonzepten, die es ermöglichen, bisherige Lehrlaufzeiten im Studium sinnvoll zu nutzen. (...)

Augmented Reality (AR) is a fast-emerging technology and it has been applied in many fields e.g. education, health, entertainment, gaming and tracking systems in logistics. AR technology combines the virtual world with the reality by superimposing digital information onto the physical world. This study evaluates the usability of the AR in industrial environment focusing on effectiveness, efficiency, and user acceptance in comparison to other instructional medium e.g. paper-based instructions or manuals. An AR prototype was developed to be used in the usability evaluation. To evaluate the AR application in the field of industry an experiment was conducted. To get the user experience and acceptance questionnaires and interviews were used involving real assembly workers where they used the AR prototype. The results of the study show that when using AR as assistance in the assembly assurance process, the number of faults and task completion time were reduced significantly compared to the traditional methods. Also, the users had a positive attitude and a high level of satisfaction when using AR.

De nos jours, le maintien de l'asepsie dans la salle d'opération est vital pour la limitation de la transmission d'infections nosocomiales au patient lors de l'opération. Des mesures d'asepsie drastiques ont pour but de préserver la zone stérile de tout agent infectieux.Elles interdisent actuellement au chirurgien d'interagir avec les équipements non-stériles du bloc.Le chirurgien opérant souhaiterait cependant disposer d'un contrôle direct sur certains équipements spécifiques du bloc dans des situations données sans enfreindre ces mesures.Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse concernent le développement d'une Interface Homme-Machine permettant la commande gestuelle sans contact, et donc sans transmission d'agents infectieux, de tels équipements.Dans la continuité des travaux existants dans la littérature, une chaîne de traitement basée sur des techniques de vision informatique et un prototype de caméra portée par l'utilisateur ont ainsi été développés pour atteindre ces objectifs. Ce document présente les études comparatives menées sur des algorithmes issus de la littérature afin de sélectionner les plus aptes à être employés dans la chaîne logicielle. Un descripteur géométrique dédié aux mains est introduit, et des approches coopératives sont investiguées sur les étapes de localisation de la main et de classification de la posture prise.Les performances de la chaîne de traitement ainsi créée sont évaluées dans différentes situations à l'aide de bases d'images et de vidéos extensives acquises dans des conditions proches de celles du bloc opératoire, ainsi que sur des images synthétiques réalisées sur un modèle virtuel de main créé ad hoc.Un démonstrateur composé de la chaîne de traitement développée et d'un prototype de caméra frontale permet, associé à une simulation de bras-support d'éclairage opératoire, d'illustrer les possibilités ouvertes par le système développé au cours de cette thèse. / Asepsis preservation in operating rooms is nowadays compulsory for avoiding the spread of hospital-acquired diseases to patients during surgeries. Drastic asepsis measures aim at preserving the sterile area of the operating room from infective agents.These measures forbid surgeons from interacting with non-sterile devices. Surgeons wish nonetheless having direct control over some of these devices.The works presented in this thesis relate to the development of a Human-Computer Interface enabling remote, hence without transmission of infective agents, non-contact control over such devices.Following on from previous authors' works in the literature, an image processing chain based on computer vision techniques and a wearable camera prototype have been developed in order to achieve these goals.This document presents the comparative studies led with algorithms issued from the literature with the aim of selecting the most suitable for using in the processing chain. A dedicated geometry-based hand descriptor is introduced, and cooperative approaches are investigated in relation with the hand localization and posture classification steps.The performance achieved by the processing chain in various situations are quantified using extensive picture and video databases acquired in conditions close to those of the operating room. Synthetic pictures created using an ad hoc virtual model of the hand are used as well for this evaluation.A demonstrator composed of the developed processing chain, a wearable camera prototype and a surgical lighting arm simulator enables the illustration of the possiblities offered by the system developed during this thesis.

Com a contínua propagação dos dispositivos móveis, uma área editorial pode estar sujeita a ficar defasada e não seguir os avanços da tecnologia – os catálogos de museus, que foram sempre uma categoria distinta de publicação. Neste momento um crescente número de instituições procura tirar partido da revolução dos dispositivos móveis, já que os usuários estão cada vez mais em sintonia com o que a tecnologia pode oferecer. Já não é suficiente publicar imagens de um objeto, o que gera um desafio para a instituição – como preservar a sua identidade tirando partido desta nova tecnologia? Em um tempo em que está se tornando cada vez mais fácil a auto-publicação no mundo digital, como testemunhado pelo conteúdo das redes sociais, a ascensão dos e-books e a descentralização de conteúdo, quais elementos se aplicam especificamente aos aplicativos de museus neste espaço? Este trabalho apresenta uma seleção de sugestões apontadas aos aplicativos para que possam aproveitar as tecnologias emergentes e ir além das versões impressas, sem perder o contato com o artista, o espaço e a instituição. / As the spread of mobile devices continues, one area of publishing risks being left behind the technology. Museum catalogues have always been a distinct category of publishing, and were slow to be successfully and widely shifted to a digital format. Now, a growing number of institutions are looking to take advantage of the mobile revolution, the mobile user is also becoming more attuned to what their technology can offer. Simply rendering a publication or object in two-dimensional digital format is no longer sufficient throwing a challenge to the institution – how to preserve their identity and character. In a time when it is becoming easier and easier to self-publish into the digital realm; as witnessed by social content, the rise of the e-book and the decentralization of content, what elements concern specifically to museum catalogues in this space? This work presents a selection suggestions applicable specifically to museum catalogues so they can leverage the emerging technologies and go beyond the printed versions, without losing touch with the artist, the exhibition and the institution. Furthermore, there is an indication of the best multimedia elements that can be added to these catalogues in order to aggregate content and extend the visitor experience.