This thesis offers one step in a direction that will help consumers make better choices in response to a growing demand for a more sustainable living (Grant 2008, Pollan 2008). In a world of seismic economic, environmental and social change the need for a more sustainable way of behaving is rapidly becoming a priority for mere survival (Porritt 2006). Indeed, it has been suggested that the collapse of economic growth in 2008 has primarily been the result of a dependence on outmoded models of consumption (Hamilton 2003, James 2008). The first section of the thesis documents as a narrative the shift from a label design, which is the result of a research paper, to the launch of a food brand within a university community, which is the commercial outcome of research. The second section of the thesis is the study that examines a nascent label design consisting of a list of ingredients as semiotic triggers that inform the consumer about the product at the point of purchase. The methodology is drawn from mediated discourse analysis (Scollon 2005, Norris & Jones 2005) and multimodal discourse analysis where each mode is viewed as a system of representation with rules and regularities attached to it (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006). I focus on the nascent shift in modal values of packaging design within the site of engagement of a supermarket. The site of engagement is where mediated actions at moments in time and space occur (Norris & Jones 2005). These mediated actions are the focus of attention of the relevant participants (Scollon 2005), and operate at different levels of attention (Norris 2004). The third section contains the appendices.

The objective of the study was to investigate multi-modality effects (visual and auditory) on the perception of urgency in elderly individuals addressing issues of safety and comfort. Twenty individuals (10 young, 10 elderly) from Montgomery County of Virginia participated in the laboratory study. In the pre-experimental audiometric tests, as expected elderly individuals had higher hearing thresholds (dBHL) than young across all the frequencies (250, 1000, 2000 and 4000 Hz) of pure tones. The difference was more pronounced at 4000 Hz. In visual acuity tests administered, elderly individuals had a lower Snellen VA than young at both near and far distances. The participants also were administered Bausch and Lomb color test; all participants were able to differentiate red color. Method of adjustment was used to collect empirical data. Rating test was administered after every treatment to objectively assess the participants' feeling of perceived urgency associated with the auditory warning signal. All the participants rated the experimental sound as urgent. Repeated measures was conducted to remove variations due to time and treatment conditions. A mixed-factorial design was used to investigate the main and interaction effects. The age effect was found to be marginally statistically significant. Modality and trial effects were not found to be significant. The reanalysis conducted after removal of outliers resulted in marginal statistical significance for age and modality main effects. Although not significant, a trend was seen in the pulse intensity levels (dBL) across modalities in the elderly individuals. Future research should be conducted to investigate modality effects in elderly individuals in a naturalistic driving environment which would give a better insight of the effects of dual modalities. / Master of Science

Brazilian logistics is the aim of this thesis, which includes discussion concerning main problems and difficulties faced by the Brazilian corporations with respect to transportation infrastrucuture, handling, storage, production and delivery for internal and external marketing. Verifying how Brazil can improve its logistics industry in order to achieve innovative forms of sustainability is the purpose of this discussion. On pursuing this path, historical data was obtained with respect to Brazilian logistics industry, which can partly explain the inefficiency of priority road as a single modal mean and pollution effects. An extensive literature review about sustainability, logistics, Physical Internet and transportation systems is carried out. Concepts from Physical Internet are studied in order to verify how logistics could be improved, national and international commercial relationships and social welfare as well. Through this research, it was possible to obtain evidences that an important Southeast located sugar cane plant uses a small percentage of its own transportation and private hired to distribute its final product. Road transportation covers internal market while road and overseas transportation is directed to external markets. Applying Physical Internet concepts like hyperconnected distribution network using Simulator Logistics Analytics 8, was determinant on verifying that is possible to make use of systemic distribution network, which complies with diverse sorts of multimodality demand and, at the same time, providing sustainability indicators. In Brazil\'s Southeast it would be possible if governmental and private actors could be interested on investing, maybe on a partnership basis, in a viability project. / Esta tese compreende um estudo sobre logística brasileira. Os principais problemas e dificuldades que as empresas brasileiras enfrentam em relação à infraestrutura do transporte, manuseio, armazenagem, produção e entrega para comercializar interna e externamente. A proposta foi verificar como o Brasil pode melhorar o sistema logístico em termos de sustentabilidade e de uma forma inovadora. Para isso, a pesquisa levantou os dados históricos em relação à logística no Brasil, o que explicou em parte, os problemas de ineficiência da unimodalidade rodoviária prioritária, além dos efeitos poluidores. Foi realizada uma revisão bibliográfica sobre sustentabilidade, logística, Physical Internet e sistemas de transporte. Os conceitos da Physical Internet foram estudados para verificar como poderim melhorar sua logística, as relações comerciais nacionais e internacionais, bem como o melhor bem-estar social em uma delas. Do ponto de vista metodológico, esta pesquisa baseou-se em um estudo de caso utilizando um software de simulação logística, desenvolvido para esse fim. Por meio da pesquisa de campo, foi observado que uma importante usina de cana-de-açúcar na região Sudeste utiliza uma pequena porcentagem de seu próprio transporte para a distribuição do produto acabado e de empresas de transporte contratadas especificamente para distribuir seu produto na maioria das localidades. O transporte é feito por modo rodoviário, apenas para comercio exterior é que se utiliza rodoviário e marítimo. Aplicando os conceitos de Internet Física, a rede de distribuição hiperconectada, utilizando o Simulador Logístico Anylogic 8, foi possível verificar que é possível utilizar uma rede de distribuição sistêmica, atendendo a diversos tipos de demanda com multimodalidade e, ao mesmo tempo, ter indicadores de sustentabilidade. No Sudeste do Brasil, seria possível que atores governamentais e privados se interessassem e investissem, talvez em parceria, em um projeto de viabilidade.

Brazilian logistics is the aim of this thesis, which includes discussion concerning main problems and difficulties faced by the Brazilian corporations with respect to transportation infrastrucuture, handling, storage, production and delivery for internal and external marketing. Verifying how Brazil can improve its logistics industry in order to achieve innovative forms of sustainability is the purpose of this discussion. On pursuing this path, historical data was obtained with respect to Brazilian logistics industry, which can partly explain the inefficiency of priority road as a single modal mean and pollution effects. An extensive literature review about sustainability, logistics, Physical Internet and transportation systems is carried out. Concepts from Physical Internet are studied in order to verify how logistics could be improved, national and international commercial relationships and social welfare as well. Through this research, it was possible to obtain evidences that an important Southeast located sugar cane plant uses a small percentage of its own transportation and private hired to distribute its final product. Road transportation covers internal market while road and overseas transportation is directed to external markets. Applying Physical Internet concepts like hyperconnected distribution network using Simulator Logistics Analytics 8, was determinant on verifying that is possible to make use of systemic distribution network, which complies with diverse sorts of multimodality demand and, at the same time, providing sustainability indicators. In Brazil\'s Southeast it would be possible if governmental and private actors could be interested on investing, maybe on a partnership basis, in a viability project. / Esta tese compreende um estudo sobre logística brasileira. Os principais problemas e dificuldades que as empresas brasileiras enfrentam em relação à infraestrutura do transporte, manuseio, armazenagem, produção e entrega para comercializar interna e externamente. A proposta foi verificar como o Brasil pode melhorar o sistema logístico em termos de sustentabilidade e de uma forma inovadora. Para isso, a pesquisa levantou os dados históricos em relação à logística no Brasil, o que explicou em parte, os problemas de ineficiência da unimodalidade rodoviária prioritária, além dos efeitos poluidores. Foi realizada uma revisão bibliográfica sobre sustentabilidade, logística, Physical Internet e sistemas de transporte. Os conceitos da Physical Internet foram estudados para verificar como poderim melhorar sua logística, as relações comerciais nacionais e internacionais, bem como o melhor bem-estar social em uma delas. Do ponto de vista metodológico, esta pesquisa baseou-se em um estudo de caso utilizando um software de simulação logística, desenvolvido para esse fim. Por meio da pesquisa de campo, foi observado que uma importante usina de cana-de-açúcar na região Sudeste utiliza uma pequena porcentagem de seu próprio transporte para a distribuição do produto acabado e de empresas de transporte contratadas especificamente para distribuir seu produto na maioria das localidades. O transporte é feito por modo rodoviário, apenas para comercio exterior é que se utiliza rodoviário e marítimo. Aplicando os conceitos de Internet Física, a rede de distribuição hiperconectada, utilizando o Simulador Logístico Anylogic 8, foi possível verificar que é possível utilizar uma rede de distribuição sistêmica, atendendo a diversos tipos de demanda com multimodalidade e, ao mesmo tempo, ter indicadores de sustentabilidade. No Sudeste do Brasil, seria possível que atores governamentais e privados se interessassem e investissem, talvez em parceria, em um projeto de viabilidade.

Microsleeps and other lapses of responsiveness can have severe, or even fatal, consequences for people who must maintain high levels of attention on monotonous tasks for long periods of time, e.g., commercial vehicle drivers, pilots, and air-traffic controllers. This thesis describes a head-mounted system which is the first prototype in the process of creating a system that can detect (and possibly predict) these lapses in real time. The system consists of a wearable device which captures multiple physiological signals from the wearer and an extensible software framework for imple- menting signal processing algorithms. Proof-of-concept algorithms are implemented and used to demonstrate that the system can detect simulated microsleeps in real time. The device has three sensing modalities in order to get a better estimate of the user＇s cognitive state than by any one alone. Firstly, it has 16 channels of EEG (8 currently in use) captured by 24-bit ADCs sampling at 250 Hz. The EEG is acquired by custom-built dry electrodes consisting of spring-loaded, gold-plated pins. Secondly, the device has a miniature video camera mounted below one eye, providing 320 x 240 px greyscale video of the eye at 60 fps. The camera module includes infrared illumination so that it can operate in the dark. Thirdly, the device has a six-axis IMU to measure the orientation and movement of the head. These sensors are connected to a Gumstix computer-on-module which transmits the captured data to a remote computer via Wi-Fi. The device has a battery life of about 7.4 h. In addition to this hardware, software to receive and analyse data from the head-mounted device was developed. The software is built around a signal processing pipeline that has been designed to encapsulate a wide variety of signal processing algorithms; feature extractors calculate salient properties of the input data and a classifier fuses these features to determine the user＇s cognitive state. A plug-in system is provided which allows users to write their own signal processing algorithms and to experiment with different combinations of feature extractors and classifiers. Because of this flexible modular design, the system could also be used for applications other than lapse detection‒any application which monitors EEG, eye video, and head movement can be implemented by writing appropriate signal processing plug-ins, e.g., augmented cognition or passive BCIs. The software also provides the ability to configure the device＇s hardware, to save data to disk, and to monitor the system in real time. Plug-ins can be implemented in C++ or Python. A series of validation tests were carried out to confirm that the system operates as intended. Most of the measured parameters were within the expected ranges: EEG amplifier noise = 0.14 μVRMS input-referred, EEG pass band = DC to 47 Hz, camera focus = 2.4 lp/mm at 40 mm, and total latency < 100 ms. Some parameters were worse than expected but still sufficient for effective operation: EEG amplifier CMRR ≥ 82 dB, EEG cross-talk = -17.4 dB, and IMU sampling rate = 10 Hz. The contact impedance of the dry electrodes, measured to be several hundred kilohms, was too high to obtain clean EEG. Three small-scale experiments were done to test the performance of the device in operation on people. The first two demonstrated that the pupil localization algorithm produces PERCLOS values close to those from a manually-rated gold standard and is robust to changes in ambient light levels, iris colour, and the presence of glasses. The final experiment demonstrated that the system is capable of capturing all three physiological signals, transmitting them to the remote computer in real time, extracting features from each signal, and classifying simulated microsleeps from the extracted features. However, this test was successful only when using conventional wet EEG electrodes instead of the dry electrodes built into the device; it will be necessary to find replacement dry electrodes for the device to be useful. The device and associated software form a platform which other researchers can use to develop algorithms for lapse detection. This platform provides data capture hardware and abstracts away the low-level software details so that other researchers are free to focus solely on developing signal processing techniques. In this way, we hope to enable progress towards a practical real-time, real-world lapse detection system.

Dispatchers and calltakers who work at 9-1-1 call centers are confronted with memories of emergencies they must address at work even though they are not physically present at the event. The language they use to talk about their work thus always references a potentially traumatic experience processed second-hand. These telecommunicators use personal messaging through the dispatch platform, verbal communication, and texting in cellphones to tell stories about their work and manage emergency response. Often two to three mediums are used in order to communicate different aspects of the same narrative. Through storytelling, dispatchers manage an environment influenced by social hierarchies, workplace command structures, gender dynamics, and the emotional stress of the calls they must process. The fragmented experiences of dispatchers are reflected in the disjointed methods and narrative structures of their storytelling. This study offers an approach to multi-modal communication and presents an analysis of an occupational folk group not previously studied by folklorists. / 2015-07-11

Building smart home environments which automatically or semi-automatically assist and comfort occupants is an important topic in the pervasive computing field, especially with the coming of cheap, easy-to-install sensors. This has given rise to the indispensable need for human activity recognition from ubiquitous sensors whose purpose is to observe and understand what occupants are trying to do from sensory data. The main approach to the problem of human activity recognition is a probabilistic one so as to handle the complication of uncertainty, the overlapping of human behaviours and environmental noise. This thesis develops a probabilistic model as a framework for human activity recognition using multiple multi-modal sensors in complex pervasive environments. The probabilistic model to be developed is adapted and based on the abstract hidden Markov model (AHMM) with one layer to fuse multiple sensors. The concept of factored state representation is employed in the model to parsimoniously represent the state transitions for reducing the number of required parameters. The exact method is used in learning the model’s parameters and performing inference. To be able to incorporate a large number of sensors, several more parsimonious representations including the mixtures of smaller multinomials and sigmoid functions are investigated to model the state transitions, resulting in a reduction of the number of parameters and time required for training. / We examine the approximate variational method to significantly reduce the time required for training the model instead of using the exact method. A system of fixed point equations is derived to iteratively update the free variational parameters. We also present the factored model in the case where all variables are continuous with the use of the conditional Gaussian distribution to model state transitions. The variational method is still employed in this case to speed up the model’s training process. The developed model is implemented and applied in recognizing daily activity in our smart home and the Nokia lab from multiple sensors. The experimental results show that the model is appropriate for fusing multiple sensors in activity recognition with a reasonable recognition performance.

This thesis presents a research work based on an integrated multi-modal approach for sports video indexing and retrieval. By combining specific features extractable from multiple (audio-visual) modalities, generic structure and specific events can be detected and classified. During browsing and retrieval, users will benefit from the integration of high-level semantic and some descriptive mid-level features such as whistle and close-up view of player(s). The main objective is to contribute to the three major components of sports video indexing systems. The first component is a set of powerful techniques to extract audio-visual features and semantic contents automatically. The main purposes are to reduce manual annotations and to summarize the lengthy contents into a compact, meaningful and more enjoyable presentation. The second component is an expressive and flexible indexing technique that supports gradual index construction. Indexing scheme is essential to determine the methods by which users can access a video database. The third and last component is a query language that can generate dynamic video summaries for smart browsing and support user-oriented retrievals.

<p>Different security issues are a top subject around the world, especially since the terror threats seem to intensify. In the same time, the transport industry suffer from problems with smuggling and theft of valuable goods. One way to increase the security might be to have a verification system installed in commercial trucks, in order to assure that the driver is the proper one.</p><p>This thesis has two purposes. One is to find appropriate methods for driver verification and build a prototype of a verification system which can be used for testing and further development. The other is to study how truck drivers perceive such a system and how their conception goes along with the growing demand for higher security. The present work is the result of a cooperation between an engineer and a cognitive scientist. The thesis focuses on the transport industry and was performed for Volvo Technology Corporation (VTEC), Gothenburg, Sweden.</p><p>Eleven available verification methods were studied. To enable a well-based selection of methods to implement in the prototype, inquiries and interviews with truck drivers and haulage contractors were carried out to complement the theoretical study. </p><p>One regular and three biometric verification methods were chosen for the test; fingerprint verification, face recognition, voice recognition and PIN verification. These methods were put together to a prototype system that was implemented in a truck simulator. A graphical user interface was developed in order to make the system user friendly. The prototype system was tested by 18 truck drivers. They were thoroughly interviewed before and after the test in order to retrieve their background, expectations and opinions as well as their perceptions and experiences of the test. </p><p>Most of the test participants were positive to the prototype system. Even though they did not feel a need for it today they believed it to “be the future”. However, some participants felt uncomfortable with the system since they felt controlled by it. It became clear how important it is to have a system that respect the users’ privacy and to assure that the users are well informed about how the system is used. Some of the technology used for the verification system requires more development to fit in the automotive context, but it is considered to be possible to achieve a secure and robust system.</p>

This thesis aims at introducing a methodology for clinical evaluation of orthodontic treatments using three-dimensional dento-maxillofacial images. Since complementary information is achieved by integrating multiple modalities, cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) and stereophotogrammetry technologies are used to develop a methodology for tracking bone and facial skin variations over time. Our proposed methodology consists of a two-phase registration procedure. In the first phase, the multimodal images are registered using an extrinsic landmark-based registration followed by a robust Iterative Closest Points (ICP) method. In the second phase, by utilizing specific anatomical landmarks, single modal images of the skull and the mandible are registered over time using an intrinsic landmark-based registration method followed by the robust ICP algorithm. The results of registrations show that the signed error distribution of both mandible and skull registrations follow a normal distribution while all the errors fall within the CBCT precision range.