<p>This thesis describes that it is possible to drive synthetic emotions of an interface agent with an electronic nose system developed at AASS. The e-Nose can be used for quality control, and the detected distortion from a known smell sensation prototype is interpreted to a 3D-representation of emotional states, which in turn points to a set of pre-defined muscle contractions. This extension of a rule based motivation system, which we call Facial Expression Driver, is incorporated to a model for sensor fusion with active perception, to provide a general design for a more complex system with additional senses. To be consistent with the biologically inspired sensor fusion model a muscle based animated facial model was chosen as a test bed for the expression of current emotion. The social agent’s facial expressions demonstrate its tolerance to the detected distortion in order to manipulate the user to restore the system to functional balance. Only a few of the known projects use chemically based sensing to drive a face in real-time, whether they are virtual characters or animatronics. This work may inspire a future android implementation of a head with electro active polymers as synthetic facial muscles.</p>

Intelligent devices are quickly becoming necessities to support our activities during both work and play. We are already bound in a symbiotic relationship with these devices. An unfortunate effect of the pervasiveness of intelligent devices is the substantial investment of our time and effort to communicate intent. Even though our increasing reliance on these intelligent devices is inevitable, the limits of conventional methods for devices to perceive human expression hinders communication efficiency. These constraints restrict the usefulness of intelligent devices to support our activities. Our communication time and effort must be minimized to leverage the benefits of intelligent devices and seamlessly integrate them into society. Minimizing the time and effort needed to communicate our intent will allow us to concentrate on tasks in which we excel, including creative thought and problem solving. <br /><br /> An intuitive method to minimize human communication effort with intelligent devices is to take advantage of our existing interpersonal communication experience. Recent advances in speech, hand gesture, and facial expression recognition provide alternate viable modes of communication that are more natural than conventional tactile interfaces. Use of natural human communication eliminates the need to adapt and invest time and effort using less intuitive techniques required for traditional keyboard and mouse based interfaces. <br /><br /> Although the state of the art in natural but isolated modes of communication achieves impressive results, significant hurdles must be conquered before communication with devices in our daily lives will feel natural and effortless. Research has shown that combining information between multiple noise-prone modalities improves accuracy. Leveraging this complementary and redundant content will improve communication robustness and relax current unimodal limitations. <br /><br /> This research presents and evaluates a novel multimodal framework to help reduce the total human effort and time required to communicate with intelligent devices. This reduction is realized by determining human intent using a knowledge-based architecture that combines and leverages conflicting information available across multiple natural communication modes and modalities. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated using dynamic hand gestures and simple facial expressions characterizing basic emotions. It is important to note that the framework is not restricted to these two forms of communication. The framework presented in this research provides the flexibility necessary to include additional or alternate modalities and channels of information in future research, including improving the robustness of speech understanding. <br /><br /> The primary contributions of this research include the leveraging of conflicts in a closed-loop multimodal framework, explicit use of uncertainty in knowledge representation and reasoning across multiple modalities, and a flexible approach for leveraging domain specific knowledge to help understand multimodal human expression. Experiments using a manually defined knowledge base demonstrate an improved average accuracy of individual concepts and an improved average accuracy of overall intents when leveraging conflicts as compared to an open-loop approach.

Att utforma interaktiva TV-tjänster skiljer sig på flera sätt från att designa för webb eller för vanliga PC-tillämpningar. Faktorer som lägre bildupplösning, längre avstånd mellan användare och skärm, och inte minst användandet av fjärrkontroll istället för tangentbord och mus gör att villkoren ser annorlunda ut än för PC-tillämpningar. I detta arbete beskrivs hur en videobutik för en set-top-box för digital-TV utformas via iterativ hifi-prototypning och utvärdering. Lärdomarna är tillämpbara på andra interaktiva TV-tillämpningar. / Designing interactive TV applications is in many ways different than designing for the web for for PC applications. Lower screen resolution, longer distance between user and screen, and not least the use of a remote control as input device instead of keyboard and mouse make for different conditions than when designing PC applications. In this thesis the design of a video store for a digital TV set-top-box is being outlined. The design is made through interative hifi-prototyping and evaluation. The learnings from this work are applicable on other interactive TV-applications.

A measurement system is to be presented, which is used to obtain the I-V characteristics of a solar cell and to track its temperature during irra-diation before mounting it into a complete array/module. This project presents both the design and implementation of an Electronic load for testing the solar cell under field conditions of 10000 W/m^2, which is able to provide current versus voltage and power versus voltage charac-teristics of a solar cell using a software based model developed in Lab-VIEW. An efficient water cooling method which includes a heat pipe array system is also suggested. This thesis presents the maximum power tracking of a solar cell and the corresponding voltage and current values. In addition, the design of the clamp system provides an easy means of replacing the solar cell during testing.Keywords: Solar cell, Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET), I-V characteristics, cooling system, solar cell clamp system, LabVIEW, Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Intelligent devices are quickly becoming necessities to support our activities during both work and play. We are already bound in a symbiotic relationship with these devices. An unfortunate effect of the pervasiveness of intelligent devices is the substantial investment of our time and effort to communicate intent. Even though our increasing reliance on these intelligent devices is inevitable, the limits of conventional methods for devices to perceive human expression hinders communication efficiency. These constraints restrict the usefulness of intelligent devices to support our activities. Our communication time and effort must be minimized to leverage the benefits of intelligent devices and seamlessly integrate them into society. Minimizing the time and effort needed to communicate our intent will allow us to concentrate on tasks in which we excel, including creative thought and problem solving. <br /><br /> An intuitive method to minimize human communication effort with intelligent devices is to take advantage of our existing interpersonal communication experience. Recent advances in speech, hand gesture, and facial expression recognition provide alternate viable modes of communication that are more natural than conventional tactile interfaces. Use of natural human communication eliminates the need to adapt and invest time and effort using less intuitive techniques required for traditional keyboard and mouse based interfaces. <br /><br /> Although the state of the art in natural but isolated modes of communication achieves impressive results, significant hurdles must be conquered before communication with devices in our daily lives will feel natural and effortless. Research has shown that combining information between multiple noise-prone modalities improves accuracy. Leveraging this complementary and redundant content will improve communication robustness and relax current unimodal limitations. <br /><br /> This research presents and evaluates a novel multimodal framework to help reduce the total human effort and time required to communicate with intelligent devices. This reduction is realized by determining human intent using a knowledge-based architecture that combines and leverages conflicting information available across multiple natural communication modes and modalities. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated using dynamic hand gestures and simple facial expressions characterizing basic emotions. It is important to note that the framework is not restricted to these two forms of communication. The framework presented in this research provides the flexibility necessary to include additional or alternate modalities and channels of information in future research, including improving the robustness of speech understanding. <br /><br /> The primary contributions of this research include the leveraging of conflicts in a closed-loop multimodal framework, explicit use of uncertainty in knowledge representation and reasoning across multiple modalities, and a flexible approach for leveraging domain specific knowledge to help understand multimodal human expression. Experiments using a manually defined knowledge base demonstrate an improved average accuracy of individual concepts and an improved average accuracy of overall intents when leveraging conflicts as compared to an open-loop approach.

No description available.

Urban transportation networks are inefficient due to sub-optimal use by travelers. One approach to counter the increase in urban transportation demand is to provide better information to travelers, which would allow them to make better use of the network. Existing traveler information systems do this to a certain extent, but are limited by the data available and the scope of their implementation. These systems are vertically integrated and closed so that using any external elements for analysis, user interfacing etc. is difficult. The effects of such traveler information systems are reviewed via a comparative analysis of case studies available in the literature. It is found that information availability has a definite positive effect, but the social and environmental benefits are difficult to quantify. It is also seen that combining data by integrating systems can lead to additional uses for the same data and result on better quality of service and information. In this thesis, a regional platform for multi-modal traveler information is proposed that would support the development of traveler information systems. The architecture incorporates a central processing and storage module, which acts as an information clearinghouse and supports receiving, managing and sending data to and from multiple sources and interfaces. This setup allows sharing of data for analysis or application development, but with access control. The components are loosely coupled to minimize inter-dependencies. Due to this, the source, analysis, user interface and storage components can be developed independently of each other. To better develop the requirements and understand the challenges of the proposed concept, a limited implementation of the system is designed for the midtown Atlanta region, incorporating multiple data sources and user interfaces. The individual elements of the system are described in detail as is the testing and evaluation of the system.

This thesis has been motivated by past research, problems and realizations that online library catalog users frequently perform subject searches – using keywords, subject headings and descriptors – and these searches have yielded unsatisfactory results. Web-based catalogs or WebPACs (Web-based Online Public Access Catalogs), belonging to the so-called third generation of online catalogs and providing a wide variety of search options, remain largely underutilized despite the continuous advancement of information retrieval systems. Users still encounter a number of problems, such as those related to translating their concepts to the language of the catalog’s system and cross-references prepared to this purpose. Subject access in online library catalogs can be provided through different access points. To that purpose natural and controlled indexing and retrieval languages are used, and each among them has its advantages and downsides. Natural language indexing is performed by the computer, in which process words from defined fields are automatically extracted. Controlled indexing languages are those in which selection of terms to be assigned to documents is manually performed. These are, for example, classification systems, subject heading languages and thesauri. During the 1970s, a consensus was reached that the best retrieval results are gained when using both types of indexing languages simultaneously. Apart from indexing languages, it is necessary to take into account user search behavior; and while designing user interface one has to allow for the users’ skills and knowledge - ensuring instruction, help and feedback information at every step of the retrieval process. The aim of the research was to determine the variety and quality of subject access to information in WebPACs of British university libraries, including searching by words or classification marks, natural and controlled languages, browsing options, and forming simple and complex queries in order to conclude about existing advancements, offered models and employed methods and compare them to WebPACs of Croatian university libraries.

Naujuose programiniuose produktuose plačiai taikoma mobilioji įranga (mobilieji telefonai, delniniai kompiuteriai). Programinės įrangos kūrimo procese svarbią vietą užima testavimas. Dabartinių mobiliųjų įranginių apribojimai (darbo sparta, atminties kiekis, energija, ekrano dydis, platformų įvairumas) kelia naujas problemas programinės įrangos kūrimo procesui, tame tarpe ir testavimui. Testavimo proceso automatizavimas leidžia sumažinti bandymų trukmę, padidinti testavimo darbų apimtį. Programinės įrangos testavime mobiliems įrenginiams svarbu išskirti grafinės vartotojo sąsajos testavimą. Svarbi testavimo dalis – testavimas pagal specifikaciją. Šiame darbe nagrinėjamas grafinės vartotojo sąsajos automatizuotas testavimas mobiliai įrangai, nustatomi tikslai, galimi keliai jiems pasiekti bei galimas testavimo aplinkos praplėtimas testų generavimui pagal specifikaciją. / Mobile devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistance are widely used in new software products. Testing takes important place in software development process. Constraints of mobile devices (speed, amount of memory, energy, small screen, wide range of platforms) raise new problems for software development process including testing phase. Automated approach of software testing reduces testing time and increases testing range. It is important to distinguish graphic user interface as a special part of testing. The important part of testing is specification based testing. The aim of these master theses is to analyze automated testing of GUI for mobile devices, define testing tasks and enhance mobile device testing framework by providing means for test case generation from specification.

Tezėse nagrinėjamas hipertekstinės grafinės vartotojo sąsajos aprašymas aukšto abstrakcijos lygmens elementais, juos apibrėžiant deklaratyvia sintakse. Siūloma architektūra aprašo hipertekstinę grafinę vartotojo sąsają aukšto abstrakcijos lygmens elementais. Apibrėžiamas 20-ties esminių grafinių elementų rinkinys, deklaratyvi XML notacija ir suprojektuojama HTML grafinės vartotojo sąsajos biblioteka, veikianti JavaScript pagrindu bei užtikrinanti ženkliai greitesnį ir paprastesnį grafinės vartotojo sąsajos kūrimą. Pateiktas metodas neturi viešų analogų ir yra skirtas sudėtingiems grafinės vartotojo sąsajos sprendimams. Eksperimentiniais tyrimais parodoma, kad deklaratyvi notacija ir aukštas abstrakcijos lygmuo gali sumažinti programinį kodą nuo 3,1 karto trivialiems GUI elementams iki 204,1 karto sudėtingiems GUI sprendimams. Eksperimentai patvirtina, kad didėjant grafinę vartotojo sąsają sudarančių HTML elementų kiekiui, galima tikėtis dar geresnių efektyvumo rodiklių. Sukurta architektūra yra integruota į programinės įrangos projektavimo modelį, kuriame vartotojo sąsajos ir logikos kūrimas iš dalies automatizuotas naudojant UML modelį. Tradicinis tekstinis redaktorius pakeistas duomenimis paremtu projektavimo įrankiu, panaudos atvejai vystomi scenarijais su grafiniu redaktoriumi, duomenų infrastruktūra generuojama iš modelio, o realizacija pateikiama keliomis programavimo technologijomis. / In master theses hypertext graphical user interface definition using high abstraction level declarative syntax is analyzed and architecture model is suggested. Suggested architecture defines graphical user interface using high abstraction level elements. Basic element set of more than 20 elements is defined, declarative XML notation is suggested and graphical user interface library for HTML is developed with JavaScript to ensure much faster and easier standard-based graphical user interface development. Provided method has no public analogues yet and is suggested for complex graphic user interfaces. Experimental studies proved that declarative syntax and high abstraction level can reduce programming language code from 3.1 times on trivial GUI elements to 204.1 times on complex GUI solutions. Studies have showed that when the number of HTML elements composing graphical user interface grows, even better effectiveness can be achieved. Developed architecture is integrated in software development model where graphical user interface and logic are semi-automated using UML model. Traditional text editor is changed by data driven design tool, use-cases are developed using graphical editor, data infrastructure is build from the model and solution is delivered in several programming technologies.