Software to display and analyse DNA sequences is a crucial tool for bioinformatics research. The data of a DNA sequence has a relatively simple format but the length and sheer volume of data can create difficulties in navigation while maintaining overall context. This is one reason that current bioinformatics applications can be difficult to use. This research examines techniques for navigating through large single DNA sequences and their annotations. Navigation in DNA sequences is considered here in terms of the navigational activities: exploration, wayfinding and identifying objects. A process incorporating user-centred design was used to create prototypes involving panning and zooming of DNA sequences. This approach included a questionnaire to define the target users and their goals, an examination of existing bioinformatics applications to identify navigation designs, a heuristic evaluation of those designs, and a usability study of prototypes. Three designs for panning and five designs for zooming were selected for development. During usability testing, users were asked to perform common navigational activities using each of the designs. The “Connected View” design was found to be the most usable for panning while the “Zoom Slider” design was best for zooming and most useful zooming tool for tasks involving browsing. For some tasks the ability to zoom was unnecessary. The research provides important insights into the expectations that researchers have of bioinformatics applications and suitable methods for designing for that audience. The outcomes of this type of research can be used to help improve bioinformatics applications so that they will be truly usable by researchers.

Σκοπός της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η ταξινόμηση κλινικών περιπτώσεων κοιλιακών αλγών και συγκεκριμένα περιπτώσεων σκωληκοειδίτιδας σε παιδιά ηλικίας μέχρι 14 ετών μέσω ενός εργαλείου που υλοποιούμε. Βασικός λόγος για τη κατασκευή αυτού του εργαλείου αποτέλεσε η δυσκολία στη πρόβλεψη της ασθένειας από τους ειδικούς (κατά μέσο όρο γίνονται 20% - 30% αχρείαστες εγχειρήσεις), η συχνή σύγχυσή της με άλλες περιπτώσεις κοιλιακών αλγών ενώ το ποσοστό θνησιμότητας στα παιδιά με σκωληκοειδίτιδα ποικίλλει από 0,1% - 1%. Βασισμένοι σε ένα σύνολο δεδομένων από τη Παιδοχειρουργική Κλινική του Πανεπιστημιακού Νοσοκομείου της Αλεξανδρούπολης, διεξάγουμε αναζήτηση των καλύτερων παραμέτρων για τη κατασκευή μοντέλων ταξινομητών βασισμένων στις τρεις παρακάτω τεχνικές Υπολογιστικής Νοημοσύνης: α) τα Τεχνητά Νευρωνικά Δίκτυα, β) τις Μηχανές Διανυσμάτων Υποστήριξης και γ) τα Τυχαία Δάση. Χρησιμοποιώντας ένα σύνολο 14 κλινικών και εργαστηριακών παραγόντων, υλοποιούμε μοντέλα ταξινομητών. Η βασική ιδέα για την υλοποίηση τους είναι η αντιμετώπιση των παρακάτω προβλημάτων: : α) έχει το παιδί σκωληκοειδίτιδα ή όχι; β) Αν έχει σκωληκοειδίτιδα, ποιος τρόπος αντιμετώπισής της ενδείκνυται: χειρουργική επέμβαση ή συντηρητική αγωγή; Μετά την εύρεση των βέλτιστων μοντέλων από κάθε μία από τις μεθόδους Υπολογιστικής Νοημοσύνης που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν, υλοποιήθηκε ένα εργαλείο εύχρηστης διεπαφής χρήστη στο προγραμματιστικό περιβάλλον της Matlab 2012a το οποίο ευελπιστούμε ότι θα υποβοηθήσει τους ειδικούς στη λήψη απόφασης για τη πορεία ενός νεαρού ασθενούς που εισέρχεται στο νοσοκομείο παραπονούμενος για σκωληκοειδίτιδα. Το εργαλείο αυτό ελέγχθηκε με καινούργια πραγματικά κλινικά δεδομένα από το Καραμανδάνειο Νοσοκομείο Παίδων Πατρών και η απόδοσή του ήταν ενθαρρυντική. / The purpose of this paper is the classification of clinical cases of abdominal pain and, to be more precise, the prediction of cases with acute appendicitis at children aged up to 14 years old through a tool that we implement. The main reasons for the construction of this tool are: a) the difficulty in the prediction of the appendicitis since the 20%-30% of the operations made from the experts for this disease are gratuitous, b) the frequent confusion that there is with other diseases that cause abdominal pain and c) the mortality rate at children with appendicitis varies from 0,1% to 1%. Based on a data set from the Department of the Child Surgery of the Hospital of the University of Alexandroupolis, we conduct a search of the best parameters for the construction of model classifiers based on the three following techniques of the Computational Intelligence: a) the Artificial Neural Networks, b) the Support Vector Machines and c) the Random Forests. The basic idea for the implementation of these models is, based on a sum of 14 clinical and laboratory factors, facing the following questions: a) if a child has appendicitis or not?, b) and if it does have appendicitis, which way should we follow to cure it: operational surgery or medication? After finding these best models, we implement a tool which is actually a Graphical User Interface of Matlab 2012a which we hope that will assist the experts in making the correct decision about a young patient that goes to the hospital complaining for appendicitis. This tool was tested on new real clinical data of patients of the Child Hospital of Patras and its performance was found really encouraging.

Cardiovascular disease is a serious life-threatening disease. It can occur suddenly and progresses rapidly. Finding the right disease features in the early stage is important to decrease the number of deaths and to make sure that the patient can fully recover. Though there are several methods of examination, describing heart activities in signal form is the most cost-effective way. In this case, ECG is the best choice because it can record heart activity in signal form and it is safer, faster and more convenient than other methods of examination. However, there are still problems involved in the ECG. For example, not all the ECG features are clear and easily understood. In addition, the frequency features are not present in the traditional ECG. To solve these problems, the project uses the optimized CWT algorithm to transform data from the time domain into the time-frequency domain. The result is evaluated by three data mining algorithms with different mechanisms. The evaluation proves that the features in the ECG are successfully extracted and important diagnostic information in the ECG is preserved. A user interface is designed increasing efficiency, which facilitates the implementation.

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.

The subject of this diploma thesis is to search for the possibilities of using the Maple program for teaching financial mathematics. The basis is to create the maplet, which allows to users to fully benefit from the the strength of CAS (computer algebra system) created by the division Maplesoft of the company Waterloo Inc., through a simple graphical user interface. Maplets provide all the necessary tools for the calculations, they are very illustrative and help students to better understand certain problem. Detailed evolution of the maplets from its development through possibilities to its creation is also important part of this diploma thesis.

O aumento da população senescente no Brasil e no mundo implica ações específicas para satisfazer às necessidades e preferências do público idoso. Diversas áreas do conhecimento dedicam-se aos estudos relacionados ao envelhecimento humano com a finalidade de garantir a autonomia, independência, qualidade de vida e expectativa de vida saudável das pessoas com mais de 60 anos. Nesse contexto, novas tecnologias de intervenção baseadas nos jogos digitais têm sido utilizadas para promover a prá-tica de atividade física com o propósito de prevenir o declínio funcional em indivíduos idosos. Sendo assim, o objetivo desta pesquisa consiste em estabelecer um conjunto de requisitos de projeto para apoiar o desenvolvimento de jogos digitais que utilizam a interface natural, a partir da perspectiva dos usuários idosos caidores, a fim de contribuir para a melhora na qualidade de vida. Para tanto, realizou-se uma intervenção no projeto de extensão do Centro de Estudos de Lazer e Atividade Física do Idoso (Celari) da Escola de Educação Física (ESEF) da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), em um período de oito semanas, com duas sessões semanais. Os instrumentos de avaliação aplicados na pesquisa foram dois questionários, incluindo questões fechadas, com delineamento pré e pós-intervenção. Além disso, utilizou-se a observação direta com o intuito de recolher informações acerca da amostra. O instrumento de intervenção adotado na pesquisa foi o console Xbox One® com o sensor de movimento Kinect 2.0® e sete jogos digitais. Estabeleceram-se, então, os requisitos de usuá-rios com base nas necessidades e preferências exigidos pelos participantes da pesquisa durante a inter-venção. Em uma etapa posterior, empregou-se o método do Desdobramento da Função Qualidade (QFD) para converter os requisitos de usuários em um conjunto de requisitos de projeto sistematizados de acordo com grau de importância atribuído pelos usuários. Com isso, pretendeu-se oferecer um con-junto de requisitos de projeto para, eventualmente, orientar o desenvolvimento de um jogo digital uti-lizando a interface natural, com vistas a melhorar a qualidade de vida, o equilíbrio e reduzir o risco de quedas das pessoas idosas. / The increase in the elderly population in Brazil and in the world implies specific actions to meet the needs and preferences of the elderly. Several areas of knowledge are involved with studies related to human aging in order to ensure autonomy, independence, life quality and healthy life expectancy of people over 60 years of age. In this context, new digital game-based intervention technologies have been used to promote the practice of physical activity aiming at preventing functional decline in the elderly. Thus, this research aims to establish a set of project requirements to support the development of digital games using the natural user interface from the perspective of elderly faller users in order to contribute for the improvement in life quality. Therefore, an intervention was accomplished in the extension project of the Center of Studies of Leisure and Physical Activity for the Elderly (Celari) from the School of Physical Education (ESEF), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), during a period of eight weeks, two sessions/week. The assessment tools used in the research were two questionnaires, with closed questions, pre- and post- test design. In addition, it was also used the direct observation in order to gather information about the sample. The intervention tool adopted in the research was the Xbox One® console with Kinect 2.0® motion sensor and seven digital games. Then, it was established the user’s requirements based on the needs and preferences required by the participants of the research during the intervention. At a later stage, it was used the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method to convert the user requirements into a set of project requirements system-atized according to the degree of importance assigned by the users. Thus, it was intended to offer a set of requirements for the project in order to, possibly, orientate the development of a digital game using the natural user interface, aiming to improve the elderly’s life quality, balance as well as decrease their risk of falls.

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.

En informatique ambiante, les objectifs de l'utilisateur peuvent émerger opportunément. Il devient, dès lors, nécessaire de générer à la volée des systèmes interactifs. Un système interactif est composé d'un noyau fonctionnel et d'une Interface Homme-Machine (IHM). Cette thèse traite de la composition d'IHM pour un objectif utilisateur et un contexte d'usage (utilisateur, plate-forme, environnement) donnés. Elle en propose un espace problème fondé sur les exigences utilisateur recueillies par une étude qualitative. Un état de l'art positionne notre travail et en montre la complémentarité par rapport aux travaux existants : la composition du modèle de tâches. La composition de l'IHM concrète est déléguée à une boîte à outils d'interacteurs définis au niveau tâches. La composition du modèle de tâches se fait par planification automatique. L'étude montre que les planificateurs existants répondent partiellement au problème. Aussi, un planificateur a été spécifiquement développé pour l'IHM. Son utilisation est illustrée dans un prototype Compose. Le travail est original à deux titres : d'une part, son approche « Composition de modèles de tâches » est une extension de la littérature ; d'autre part, la composition d'IHM est un nouveau cadre applicatif pour les algorithmes de planification. / In ubiquitous computing, user needs may opportunistically emerge along the variation of the context of use. Thus, there is a need for dynamically composing interactive systems. An interactive system is made of a functional core and a User Interface (UI). This work deals with the composition of UIs to support opportunistic user needs in a given context of use (user, platform, environment). It proposes a problem space of UI composition based on a social study. A state of the art shows the originality of the work: the composition of the task model. The composition of the concrete UI is delegated to a toolkit of interactors defined at the task level. The composition of the task model is done by automated planning. The work shows that current planners do not fulfill Human Computer Interaction (HCI) requirements. Therefore, a specific planner has been developed to compose UIs. This planner is used in Compose, our proof of concept. The work is original in two points: first, by the high level of abstraction the composition is performed at; secondly, by the use of automated planning in HCI.

Ma thèse s'inscrit dans le domaine de l'ingénierie de l'interaction homme-machine. Elle traite de la conception d'interfaces hommes machine (IHM). La créativité n'y est souvent considérée que de manière marginale. Pourtant l'effervescence technologique et la diversité résultante des contextes d'usage appellent à de plus en plus de créativité. Ma thèse soutient le principe que l'innovation passe par l'application de processus créatifs. Dès lors, le défi est de savoir explorer largement et efficacement l'espace de conception dès les phases amont du processus. Il convient donc d'intégrer et d'enseigner la créativité dans les processus de conception d'IHM, en particulier pour les concepteurs débutants.Ce positionnement sur le sujet provient d'une double approche : d'une part théorique, avec un état de l'art explorant les dimensions de la créativité et les outils informatiques de support à la créativité ; d'autre part empirique, avec quatre mises en pratique de la créativité dans des domaines de conception différents comme l'architecture, la conception de produit et la conception de systèmes interactifs. Je construis ma contribution sur les principes suivants : (1) la créativité n'est pas réservée à une élite, mais peut être travaillée et renforcée par des outils informatiques ; (2) ces outils doivent soutenir la motivation, la recherche d'inspiration, l'exploration en largeur, et les connaissances relatives au domaine et aux processus de conception. Selon une démarche réflexive, j'applique ces mêmes principes dans ma thèse. Je propose une exploration en largeur du support à la créativité via cinq contributions logicielles complémentaires : Maestro et Bank pour la capitalisation des connaissances ; WebGallery, BrianStorming et Magellan pour l'inspiration et l'exploration de l'espace de conception. Plus précisément, Maestro traite de la capitalisation des processus de conception tandis que BANK assure la structuration et la capitalisation des connaissances en IHM via un graphe de modèles. WebGallery est une galerie de sites web pour inspirer les concepteurs : je conduis une expérimentation sur la perception humaine du style d'un site web. BrianStorming est un assistant au brainstorming : il fournit des suggestions pendant une séance de brainstorming électronique. Magellan est un environnement interactif à base d'algorithmes génétiques qui génèrent et transforment automatiquement des IHM pour un problème de conception donné. Par ce positionnement et ces contributions logicielles, l'ordinateur change de statut : de simple outil, il devient un concepteur assistant, partenaire du processus de créativité. / My PhD thesis contributes to the engineering of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). It deals with the design of User Interfaces (UI). I claim that creative processes should be better considered, and supported by tools especially for novice designers. The challenge is to speed up the exploration of the design space at the early stages of the process. This claim is grounded in both a theoretical state of the art in creativity and creativity support tools, and in practice of the topic with four hands-on experiences of creativity in different areas of design such as architecture, product design and UI design. I build my contribution on the following principles: (1) creativity is not reserved for the elite, but can be tailored and fostered by software tools; (2) the tools must leverage motivation, inspiration, wide exploration, and knowledge in UI and design processes. Through a reflective process, I apply these principles to my thesis. I explore a wide range of creativity support tools through five complementary software contributions: Maestro and Bank for supporting knowledge capitalization; WebGallery, BrianStorming and Magellan for fostering inspiration and exploration of the design space. Maestro addresses the capitalization of design processes whilst BANK gathers knowledge in HCI as a graph of models. WebGallery is a gallery of websites to inspire designers: I report an experiment on human perception of websites styles. BrianStorming is a brainstorming assistant: it provides suggestions in a electronic brainstorming session. Magellan is an interactive environment based on genetic algorithms that automatically generate and transform UIs for a given design problem. This changes the role of the computer: from a simple tool, it becomes a designer's partner in the creative process.

Submitted by Clebson Anjos (clebson.leandro54@gmail.com) on 2016-02-11T20:19:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1685245 bytes, checksum: 687a26c0e848a6d9adf5236f658a6ba8 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-11T20:19:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1685245 bytes, checksum: 687a26c0e848a6d9adf5236f658a6ba8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12-09 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The use of mobile devices brings great benefits of connectivity to its users. However, access to information through these devices is a new challenge of interaction for users who have some kind of disability. Currently, most mobile applications have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible the usage for many individuals with special needs. To ensure access to the content to all users regardless of their health status, this paper proposes a model for evaluating user interfaces accessibility focused on mobile devices. The proposed model takes into account the users experience without neglecting the specificities of mobile context and accessibility scenario. As a result, there is a group of perceptions observed from the tests performed to evaluate the three mobile applications developed for deaf. As a contribution, there is a group of recommendations for the evaluation of the user experience and the challenges and new perspectives to evaluate the mobile accessibility, given that few methods consider these two contexts in a coupled way. / O uso de dispositivos móveis traz grandes benefícios de conectividade para seus usuários. Contudo, o acesso à informação através desses dispositivos representa um novo desafio de interação para os usuários que possuem algum tipo de deficiência. Atualmente, a maioria das aplicações móveis possui barreiras de acessibilidade que dificultam ou impossibilitam sua utilização por diversos indivíduos com necessidades especiais. Visando garantir o acesso ao conteúdo a todos os usuários, independentemente de limitações físicas e mentais, este trabalho propõe um modelo de avaliação de interfaces de usuário voltado à acessibilidade em dispositivos móveis. O modelo proposto leva em consideração a experiência de usuários sem deixar de lado as especificidades do contexto móvel e do cenário de acessibilidade. Como resultados, tem-se um conjunto de percepções observadas a partir de testes realizados ao avaliar três aplicações móveis desenvolvidas para surdos. Como contribuição, tem-se um conjunto de recomendações para avaliação da experiência de usuários, bem os desafios e novas perspectivas ao avaliar a acessibilidade móvel, dado que poucos métodos consideram de forma acoplada esses dois contextos.