Intelligent Human Systems Integration (IHSI 2022): Integrating People and Intelligent Systems

AHFE International

Accelerating Open Access Science in Human Factors Engineering and Human-Centered Computing

Intelligent Human Systems Integration (IHSI 2022): Integrating People and Intelligent Systems

book-cover

Editors: Tareq Ahram, Waldemar Karwowski, Pepetto Di Bucchianico, Redha Taiar, Luca Casarotto, Pietro Costa

Topics: Artificial Intelligence & Computing

Publication Date: 2022

ISBN: 978-1-7923-8988-7

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100931

Articles

Modeling of the laminating machine based on ergonomic studies for the manufacture of marzipan handicrafts

The value that the human resource represents within any organization, appears as an essential element with a strategic direction that, together with a machine, opens the way to productive efficiency. The objective of this research was the modeling of a semi-automatic laminating machine that allows to increase the homogeneity of the dough, optimization of the times from 10 to 3 minutes, and reduction of efforts that the elderly craftsman made to reduce the thickness of the dough, which is then used to make marzipan handicrafts (figures) in the parish of Calderón, Quito -Ecuador. These handicrafts are made manually in the country, this art being part of the culture and tradition. The modeling was carried out in the Solid-Works Software for Windows and the ergonomic studies were carried out using the OWAS method (Ovako Working Posture Analyzing System) and the OCRA Check List, evaluating the risk of repetitive work, considering risk factors such as: repetitiveness that present Medium unacceptable risk , forced postures for sequential postures the level of risk is low, forces lifting the mass of 3 kg and the lack of breaks in the handling of the raw material because it cools down in about 15 minutes. It is feasible to use an adequate technology within this production process because it is designed with special attention to the cultural and economic aspects of the community of marzipan artisans.

Ana Alvarez Sanchez, Alexis Suàrez Del Villar Labastida, Anthony René Ango Venegas, Eric Martinez Tocoronte

Conference Proceedings

Cognitive Model for Probability Density Distribution Uncertainty Visualization

People often obtain information and make judgments with the help of systems and machines, but due to the uncertainty in the instrument, environment, and data processing, the judgments made by the system are not always correct. Blindly believing the results of the system's decision-making is very dangerous, so effective information exchange between the system and users is the prerequisite to ensure correct decision-making, and it is extremely important to convey the uncertain information of the system to users. Visualization is an important way to inform users of uncertain information. At present, many scholars have conducted research on how to express the uncertainty contained in data. Then whether users can effectively recognize and understand these visual graphics becomes an issues to be explored.What this article wants to explore is how people recognize and understand visualization for uncertainty. Only by understanding the way people interpret visualization can the visualization be optimized and the information exchange between the system and users can be better realized.In this paper, the user’s perception of probability under the triangular distribution is studied. A symmetric distribution model and two asymmetric models are used. In each distribution model, 13 test points are selected according to the true value of the probability density. The experiment is realized by Unity3D. In each trial, the positions of the distribution model and the test points appear randomly. The experiment describes the task of using remote sensing technology to recognize camouflage targets. The participants need to answer the probability that the target to be detected represented by the test point is the enemy's camouflage target.This paper verifies the effectiveness of using the brightness gradient to visualize the uncertainty, and this conclusion is consistent with the results of previous studies. At the same time, this paper proposes a fitting model of the user's internal probabilistic cognition and the visual expression of probability density. We found that when the participants used the triangular probability distribution information expressed by the brightness gradient to infer the probability that the test point is a camouflage target, this perceived probability has a strong linear correlation with the true value of the probability density corresponding to the point. Participants will give a probability prediction close to 1 at the test point with the lowest brightness, that is, the highest probability density, and a probability prediction close to 0 at the highest brightness point, that is, the lowest probability density point. Fitting based on the linear model can obtain the probabilistic cognitive model of the subjects for the visualized graph.This article provides a way to realize the communication of uncertainty information between the system and the user, and may contribute some help to the effectiveness and reliability of artificial intelligence.

Ruoyu Hu, Xinyue Wang, Haiyan Wang, Chengqi Xue

Conference Proceedings

Designing and Evaluating of an iPad-based Reading Mode for Enhancing the Efficiency of Non-native Immersive Reading

With the development of the Internet and electronic devices, it has become easier for us to acquire knowledge, but the concentration of reading has decreased. Nowadays, many tasks must rely on various electronic devices, and within them there is still a large demand for immersive reading in front of electronic screens. However, due to the particularity of electronic devices, the concentration of text reading is not high enough, resulting in low reading efficiency, especially for non-native language reading. Many studies have focused on the effects of static elements (such as labeling, background color, etc.) on reading efficiency and fatigue, however, few studies on the effect of dynamic text display form on reading concentration.Considering that iPad is often selected as the immersive reading tool, due to its function of annotating with pencils, this study aims to propose an iPad-based dynamic reading mode to help users with immersive reading demands read more effectively with electronic devices. In order to clarify the direction of design, we conducted a pre-experiment on the several existing reading modes designed for reading concentration available through eye-tracking evaluation and user interviews. Three participants wore eye trackers to experience several reading modes and put forward their design suggestions. Based on the eye-tracking data and interview results, an iPad-based reading mode of paragraph highlight was proposed based on the improvement of the existing reading mode. This reading mode can dynamically highlight the paragraphs of the article following the drag of the page, helping users to concentrate on the paragraphs they want to read intensively, without being interfered by other elements on the page.In order to evaluate the function of this reading mode, a multi-dimension verification experiment was conducted on the reading efficiency and concentration of non-native language reading with this reading mode and its user preference. The experiment was conducted by reading articles in different reading modes and answering questions about articles, and filling out subjective evaluation scales. A total of 24 university students were invited, all of whom are non-native speakers of English, and their English level is comparable. The English articles used were all TOEFL reading articles of the same difficulty, in order to balance the difficulty of the questions after the articles. Each participant experienced three reading modes in the experiment, which are reading modes of line highlight, paragraph highlight, and normal (no highlight). The order of the three modes and the combination of articles have been balanced. After each article, there were three questions about the articles and several subjective evaluation scales about concentration, preference, and difficulty.The results show that the reading mode of paragraph highlight received the highest correct rate of question-answer and reading concentration of subjective evaluation significantly. Moreover, its user preference is also significantly higher than the other two reading modes. In conclusion, it shows that the reading mode of paragraph highlight proposed in this research may improve the efficiency and concentration of non-native language reading on the iPad. In the future, relevant web reading plug-ins or reading apps in the iPad based on this reading mode can be developed, which may provide more possibilities for users who use iPad for immersive reading.

Donglin Wang, Yuning Qian, Jiong Fu, Hongli Jia

Conference Proceedings

Layout Evaluation of Luban Banner Interface Elements Based on Aesthetic Calculation

The layout design of the human-machine interface is to make it an effective information input and output medium through a reasonable layout of the interface elements. The quality of its design not only affects the user's visual sense but also affects the work performance of the human-machine interface system. Although the main factors that affect interface design are user tasks and user capabilities, with the development of the times, users' aesthetics and needs are also advancing with the times, and designers should not be limited to considering the realization of functions. Nowadays, under the background of similar functions, how to stand out from many products in the human-machine interface, product aesthetics has become an increasingly important factor. At present, there is no clear standard to guide interface design, nor can it be applied to actual interface design.In the exploration of the beauty standard, Ngo et al. proposed a bottom-up method to objectively measure the beauty of the interface, combining the characteristic elements of the interface design with the user's perception of visual beauty. The evaluation model consists of 13 measurement features. Ngo also verified the impact of these features on the aesthetics of the interface and obtained the most influential evaluation index of the aesthetics of the interface. However, the number of features is too large and it is not easy to calculate. At the same time, for interfaces with different functional properties, the relative importance of aesthetic indicators is not consistent, which may affect the objectivity of the calculation results of interface aesthetics.This research is based on Ngo's beauty calculation theory. After screening, we select 4 representative beauty indicators: balance, symmetry, integrity, and simplicity, and quantify them separately, and introduce the analytic hierarchy process to calculate each indicator. Finally, a comprehensive beauty calculation formula method for the layout of interface elements is proposed. Taking Luban banner design as an example, this research verifies the objectivity and accuracy of this method for measuring the beauty level of the layout of interface elements and can reflect the influence of a single evaluation index on the comprehensive beauty, which is helpful to guide designers to design and improve the interfaceIn this study, four indicators and formulas for beauty evaluation were selected to verify the effectiveness and reliability of the method. However, there are still shortcomings in this research. The emotional impact of interface elements, the personal preferences of subjective reviewers, and interface colors are not taken into consideration. In-depth research will be carried out in the future.

Liwei Chen, Ning Zhang

Conference Proceedings

Design of Point Pop-ups with Visual Representation based on Weather Map Interface

The point pop-ups in the weather map interface are essential for displaying real-time weather information in different geographic environments. However, with the explosive development of multimodal map information, the unfriendly expression of most pop-ups breaks the smooth user experience, which brings great challenges to the visual design of pop-ups. This paper regarded point pop-ups in the Chinese weather map as the research object and discussed the design strategy of pop-ups from four aspects: information capacity, combination type, layout mode, and transparency. By comparing the design schemes of different factor levels, the user's behavior performance in the two groups of experiments was analyzed. The results found that the behavior performance on graphic-text pop-ups was better than text-only ones at the same level. When point pop-ups were distributed in the weather map interface with high density, the operability and readability of comprehensive weather information could be ensured by adjusting the overlapping and transparency.

Junkai Shao, Wenzhe Tang, Bingqing Yang, Chengqi Xue

Conference Proceedings

Naturality and non-transparency of technology in the age of intelligent voice assistants

This paper describes the psycho-social consequences of using voice assistants, based on a new look at the concept of the interface as a tool that allows the use of another tool. In analysing the history of interfaces and considering them in terms of naturalness (ease of use) and transparency (visibility and understandability to the user), it can be seen that they evolved in the direction of unnaturalness for a long time, but have again recently become more natural. One of the newest stages of this process are voice assistants. The popularization of them has significant potential to strengthen the competence and abilities of a human being. The barriers of technical ability will be weakened, and abilities and possibilities based on access to instant information will be strengthened. A user will become a super-empowered individual. At the same time, the new type of interface will gain new, unprecedented features. The price that was paid for making the technology natural is its extreme non-transparency (its obscurity, complexity and convoluted nature). It is to be expected that the amount of information about a user that an interface has will be growing. It will start a far-reaching asymmetry – where the interface is trained on a neural network and has the knowledge about millions of users at its disposal; it will know how to make is so that a particular user chooses what is in the interest of interface owner or to undertake a desired kind of action. In the modern world knowledge translates into power, and this will be the first time in history that we will be faced with a situation in which an apparatus standing behind an interface may gain an advantage over a user on such a scale. The non-transparency of this interface will cause users to understand their tool less and less, and in extreme cases the asymmetry in the relations may go so far that it will lead to a reversal of the tool-user relation. It will be a human being who is the tool used to attain a particular aim, a means to an end; the human being may become an extension of technology. A simple example is that of road traffic control in cities – an application showing traffic density and navigating to destination. A driver relies here on information received by the system. He has to trust that a certain road is the most effective. It is enough for the application to have a different aim (e.g. directing the traffic so there are no accidents) for the user’s aim (get somewhere as fast as possible) and that of the application owner to have diverged, and that the human being has become a tool in helping the system achieve the aim. Thus, this situation serve as yet another example of Postman’s “invisible technology’’ , something that we do not see, and which is supposed to be neutral by definition. However, as Martin Heidegger noted, many technologies have the greatest impact on us when they are perceived as neutral.

Jaroslaw Kowalski, Cezary Biele, Kazimierz Krzysztofek

Conference Proceedings

Hybrid Sensory Surfaces: Biological meets Digital

The re-design of interactive devices in response to needs in terms of environmental sustainability and enrichment of user experience combines two core topics of contemporary design: biological and digital. Through the design project we can twist material and immaterial, physical and virtual, integrating different modalities of interaction, stratifying the information on multiple levels and conferring to surfaces a perceptual plus involving multiple sensory stimulations. In this scenario microbial nanocellulose represent a promising material because of its technical-performative features which make it usable as biological interface and capacitive sensor, but especially because of its aesthetic-sensory features which can be controlled and programmed through the interaction with the fabrication process, affecting the intensity and richness of the interactive experience.

Lorena Trebbi, Chiara Del Gesso

Conference Proceedings

Design of Smart Household Beauty Apparatus Targeting the Young Consumers

The Chinese daily cosmetics market has significantly grown in the past two years. Given the current climate whereby consumers have higher demands of external appearance, the apparition of instruments is a mere question of time. After conducting thorough interviews and desk research, it was assessed that there is a rapidly growing demand for skin care products and household beauty products amongst Chinese consumers. Simultaneously, with the advances in the development of smart technologies, smart products are penetrating the beauty apparatus market. The effect of beauty apparatuses has been widely recognized in China. This paper, therefore, delves into the improvement of user experience with household beauty apparatuses. Moreover, a new scheme has been proposed to design intelligent household beauty apparatus, thereby improving the pain points of current skincare products and devices. New beauty apparatuses are emerging in the market, and relevant technologies have been incorporated to assist the functioning of the appliances. Through a thorough analysis of the household beauty apparatus in the current market, the author summarizes their functions, features, effect, merits, and drawbacks. Moreover, after conducting a comprehensive user survey, the author determines that the pain point to be addressed is that the steps are too trivial in the use of household beauty apparatus.Based on the established pain points and existing intelligent technologies, the author proposed a new design scheme for beauty apparatus to be used in daily skincare. Furthermore, a Single Chip Microcomputer was used to simulate partial functions and established a model satisfying human-computer ergonomics. The main functional design of the beauty apparatus is as follows:(1) Smart sense of skin: After pressing the start button, the head of the apparatus comes into contact with the skin, and the apparatus will automatically detect skin and start working. (2) Automatic limit of liquid flow: When the apparatus comes into contact with the skin, the essence is automatically squeezed out on the skin. The ingredient of the essence will also vary with the position of contact. (3) Beauty auxiliary function: When the apparatus comes into contact with the skin, the auxiliary beauty function is initiated for skincare and penetration of essence, such as ultrasonic wave, red, and blue light. The shape of the product is determined based on the popular shapes of beauty apparatus in the market. The main shape follows the design philosophy of roundness, simplicity, and neatness to increase affinity with users. The handle is ergonomically designed to ensure comfort when holding. The product is also equipped with a charging base.The innovation of the structural design lies in that a certain space is provided within the handle for safe storage of the inner core of the skin moisturizer. This method obviates the hassle of application, and the process of skincare is directly completed with the apparatus.Finally, tests were conducted among five target users, and experienced experts in skincare were invited to evaluate the design skin. The results suggest that users gave positive feedback regarding the product, believing that it effectively solved some of their problems. The experts remarked that this was a meaningful, innovative attempt in the field of skincare apparatus.The principal significance of the study is as follows:The research discusses the pain points faced by users during skincare and studies the available innovative technologies regarding beauty apparatuses in use flows under the background of the evolving Chinese consumer markets and providing innovative thinking for the further development of household beauty apparatus.Furthermore, the proposed design scheme will provide solutions to trivial issues such as inadequate absorption and skincare, from the users’ perspectives.Therefore, this study is an innovative design targeting household beauty apparatus.

Xinhui Li, Jiong Fu

Conference Proceedings

Smartphone based accurate touch operations on an AR desktop

Recently, we have seen and used touch-based operations as a popular interface for smart phones and tablet PCs. As the interface, we interact with a device through touching the physical surface of the screen. The touch-based manner gives simple and intuitive interface for users but is not always convenient for several users to operate a single device cooperatively. Also, in some cases, manipulating a screen without direct touch is rather desirable. Because touchless operations prevent viruses from infecting the users. It is especially true in the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic. In order to implement such touchless interfaces, researchers have proposed augmented reality (AR) based desktops or keyboards. Most of such AR based interfaces, however, require interactions with virtual objects in the air, which are not accurate. Therefore, such interfaces are rarely used in practice. In this paper, we propose a new operation manner of AR based desktop. In our operation manner, the user can perform operations on his or her smartphone as an AR object displayed in the virtual space on the screen. The smartphone has its own AR marker, which specifies the coordinate of it, and gives the reference point for displaying the cursor. The cursor is always displayed at the center of the smartphone and represents the home position of fingers. Thus, even if the virtual screen is displayed with wide size such as one of a desktop PC, a user moves his or her fingers along with his or her smartphone to the location of a specific icon on the screen, and then can give any operations constituting of single touch or double touch, such as tapping, flicking, pinching or swiping. Notice here that the user physically operates the smartphone although he or she feels like operating the virtual screen through directly touching it. The physical operations on the smartphone contribute to intuitive manipulation and providing actual feelings. They also help the users perform accurate operations. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of our manipulation manner, we have implemented a prototype system and have conducted numerical experiments on it. The prototype system recognizes an AR marker attached on the users’ smartphones by external web cameras and decides their locations, so that the user can apply any operations of fingertips to the AR objects on the virtual screen. In the experiment, the screen is displayed in front of each user, who can identify and synchronize movement of his or her smartphone with the cursor. Once the cursor reaches the target position, each user can apply one of the following six operations: tap to launch apps, double-tap/drag to move app icons, pinch-out/pinch-in to zoom in and out, and flick to create or switch screens. We focused how the users could grasp the touch operation intuitively and manipulate the system as they intended. As the results, we have confirmed that the users can feel as if they touch the actual screen in the virtual space and manipulate the prototype system as intended.

Masahiro Miki, Munehiro Takimoto, Yasushi Kambayashi

Conference Proceedings

The near (bio)future in design

The paper joins the debate on the emerging prospective in design in the near future that will be “bio”. The world has gone through 3.8 billion years of research and development, with failures and successes, in search of the most effective and affordable so-lutions to facilitate our daily life. This is especially true today, since we realized that energy resources and raw materials are starting to run-out and that they will not be enough for the population in the near future, The planet could lit-erally implode, ceasing to be an "earthly paradise".Human people have therefore always observed Nature, using it as a source of knowledge and inspiration, but with different approaches. Starting from these premises, the present article explores how innovation can be inspired by Nature. Nature, that in this context is deemed to be the model, the measure and the “mentor” from which designers can learn through a fully informed, responsible study of its biological and biomechanical processes, with the ultimate objective of improving human activities and technology to allow full resonance with Nature itself.Today, technology allows us to reproduce natural systems and biofabricate living systems. Everything appears possible today, but we should probably ask ourselves if this is really necessary, as we did when the possibility of rep-licating and genetically modifying the living being opened up? How can we avoid running into "technological blasphemy"? What role can design play in this?

Sabrina Lucibello

Conference Proceedings

Translating the creative process of knitwear design: from manual to digital practices in a material-driven approach

In the paradigm shift through the Industry 4.0, knitwear is nowadays one of the industrial sectors that is most experiencing the dualism between craftsmanship and technological innovation.For ages associated with manual work, the complexity of a knitted product has always required to designers not just creativity, but specific technical knowledge and manual skills in the constant analysis of materials and processes for the creation of something new (Motta, 2018). Today electronic knitting machines, constantly evolving under the updating of technologies and softwares, are adding challenges to the design and product development, pushing further the boundaries for designers’ intervention, but also expanding the domains of knowledge they need to control.The two areas of knowledge, manual and technological, have become two fundamental aspects of the contemporary professional figure of a knitwear designer.The research work at affiliation studies these two areas, deepening the comparison between manual and electronic processes to highlight limits and opportunities and to generate updated methods and perspectives for future designers in the sector.It investigates the relationship between the creative process of knitwear and the tools available in a comparison between manual and technological knowledge, questioning the role that the two play in the important moments of teaching and learning.It is natural to wonder whether today it still makes sense to use manual machines, when they have been completely replaced at the industrial production level by electronic machines. What contribution can a tool that seems obsolete make to the training of designers and their future professional life? How could such different tools and processes coexist and relate?If it’s true that Knitwear is learned by doing (Conti, 2019) and by practical experience, manual machines are still useful for students as they allow the knit manipulation and the immediate change of design parameters, while the programming phase prior to electronic knitting requires a very defined design intention and the mediation of a technician. If the industrial production is entirely electronic in terms of numbers and pace, the value of manual practice is recognized also by companies, that still use manual machines in the early stages of prototyping. It is clear, however, that the future of knitwear is increasingly heading towards automation, and therefore the designer's experience cannot stop at manual machines: moving from "making by hand" to comparing it with electronic machines is the key point in the creation of a real, industrial, knitwear project (Affinito, Conti & Motta, 2017).The article reports a research project as a case study to analyze the different phases of the knitwear design process and the nodes that connect the creative and manual process to the production and technological one, stressing the translation effort that a designer faces when switching from manual to electronic machines. A translation that requires a structured dialogue between designers and technicians, and that consists not just in the simple recreation of the same structure with a different tool but in evolutions and developments that explore the possibilities and limits of the most up-to-date technologies, of traditional and innovative yarns and materials, of the processing techniques.In this regard, knitwear is a particular approach to fashion and clothing production, as the process includes both the creation of the fabric and the creation of the garment at the same time (Eckert, 1999). While the fashion designer works on an existing fabric, knitting starts from a previous step, directly from the yarn: this implies greater freedom in terms of garment development with control of every single aspect (shape, color, texture, material, weight, stitch, structure) and highlights the importance of materials and of any feature that fibers and yarns have (Cassidy, 2017).The article reports the evidence of how, in the translation from manual to electronic processes, the centrality of materials does not get lost, but is enhanced. The design activity keeps its aspect of being material-driven and every design decision stands as regulated by the choice of yarns, the limits they have, their performative features, the tactile and the visual properties, the matching of different compositions, the subsequent interventions on responsive materials, the experimentations made possible just by updated technologies and by the extreme variety of the electronic machine’s outputs.

Martina Motta

Conference Proceedings

HOYO – Shape Memory Alloys enable a new way to approach the treatment of the Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism is defined as a spectrum disorder (ASD). It varies from subject to subject, making each person in the spectrum unique in traits and needs. However, ASD is characterised by some constants, first among everything sensory disorders, which are the common thread of this disorder. Thanks to a boost in research and an improvement in diagnosis processes, awareness about autism increased significantly in recent years, leading to a consequent increase in cases. Luckily, better understanding of autism allowed early diagnosis. Early intervention was reported to enable children to achieve better results and positively affect social integration. The aim of this work was to develop an innovative product for children in the autism spectrum of preschool age, to help them integrate into the school environment and be more open to learning.The device is meant to provide complex sensorial stimulation to the trunk of the body of the user thanks to a series of inflatable bladders. Therefore, the product was named Hoyo, literally meaning "hug" in Japanese. The use of a Japanese word comes from the similarity in the complexity of physical contact that exists in both Japanese culture and people with autism. The peculiarity of this device lies in the exploitation of the properties of shape memory alloys (SMAs). Indeed, a technology transfer from the automotive sector to the autism sector was introduced, thanks to the use of smart valves featuring SMAs. This smart material provided an extremely compact, lightweight, and silent system. All these properties are essential characteristics for a product dedicated to autism. Moreover, SMA-based valves have a rapid response.The use of multiple air bladders connected to individual valves allowed the design of a device with fully customisable inflation routine, which can be set up to suit the specific needs of each child to help them relax during day-care activities.Each child with autism is unique, with his or her own needs and sensory profile, which varies throughout life. For this reason, the possibility to fully customise the device is the key element of this project. The innovation provided by Hoyo is the proposal of a device that can be customised to the child's sensory profile, changing the areas and extent of pressure, the time of treatment and the tactility of the cover. Hoyo is a powerful tool for therapists, being an intelligent human-centred device that can follow their patients as they grow. Therapists can use the system’s high technology to adapt Hoyo to the child’s needs rather than asking the child to adapt to an existing product.The device interacts with the child through sensory stimulation and the use of this intelligent system may help autistic children to relieve their sensorial build-up. Being able to release the tension caused by an over-stimulating environment, such as a kindergarten, is the first step towards achieving a higher level of inclusion in the educational system.

Alice De Nardi, Andrea Marinelli, Flavia Papile, Andrea Cadelli, Andrea Conte, Barbara Del Curto

Conference Proceedings

Factors influencing the perception of safety in automated vehicles interiors

Significance and ObjectiveTechnological progress in the automation of passenger cars leads to numerous changes in driving functions, vehicle components and promises people higher individuality and safety. The driver becomes a passenger and the relief from the driving task allows the occupants to use and enjoy their travel time for secondary activities. The subjective driving experience, feeling of safety and the resulting trust are essential for the acceptance of automation . Whether people actually feel comfortable and safe in autonomous driving scenarios and which measures are best suited to improve trust in the automated system is the subject of current research. Therefore, product development strives for a holistic optimisation of the user experience. Based on the assumption that a positive user experience is achieved through the fulfilment of various basic needs [1], it is usually realised by both recording subjective needs and requirements for relevant use cases and the iterative adaptation of product features. Literature shows that the subjective perception of safety is one of these essential needs [2] and should be taken into account for optimising the user experience. This paper focuses on the subjectively perceived safety of occupants in automated vehicles. Within this contribution we provide an overview over factors influencing the need for safety based on both a broad literature review and an additional examination. Methods and ResultsIt is clear that a positive user experience is crucial for the success of automated driving. To investigate the subjective perception of safety in the vehicle, possible influencing factors were detected and structured based findings from literature [3, 4]. The identified factors can be clustered into “control”, “comfort of posture and operation”, “interior design”, “protective effect” , “safe driving experience”, “environmental factors” and “individual factors”. Each of these factors can be further subdivided, thus 26 sub-aspects related to subjective safety could be found. With this knowledge, a self-reflective questionnaire was created to determine the participants’ personal willingness to take risks and their perception of safety in vehicles. The focus was on the factors "environment" and "protective effect". The questionnaire was answered by N=101 participants in an online survey. An overwhelming majority of the participants confirmed safety as a very important factor for personal well-being in the vehicle. The overriding factors influencing subjective safety were rated individually by the respondents and prioritised in terms of their importance. It became clear that “control”, “safe driving experience” and “protective effect” are dominant factors. “Environmental factors” (except extreme conditions) and “interior design” play a subordinate role. In particular, "Full environmental coverage", "Tangible and visual safety features", "Driving style", "Traffic situation" and "Disaster potential" are important. Conclusion and OutlookThe participants were largely able to answer the questions targeting subjective safety. In particular, questions regarding "environmental factors" could be answered precisely in the online format. The differentiability in various aspects of the “protective effect” was not conclusively possible in the online format; therefore, we are going to conduct a comparative study in the driving simulator in the next step. References1.Hassenzahl, M., Diefenbach, S., Göritz, A.: Needs, affect, and interactive products – Facets of user experience. Interacting with Computers, vol. 22, 353–362 (2010). doi: 10.1016/j.intcom.2010.04.0022.Maslow, A.: A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, vol. 50, 370–396 (1943)3.Mandel, R.: Komfortmodell und Untersuchung zum Einfluss der Innenraumgeometrie auf die Wahrnehmung und Wirkung von Fahrzeugeigenschaften. Institut für Konstruktionstechnik und Technisches Design, Stuttgart (2019)4.Schnieder, E., Schnieder, L.: Verkehrssicherheit. Maße und Modelle, Methoden und Maßnahmen für den Straßen- und Schienenverkehr. Springer Vieweg, Berlin, Heidelberg (2013)

Lutz Fischer, Daniel Holder, Benedikt Weiss, Jonathan Kiessling, Florian Reichelt, Thomas Maier

Conference Proceedings

Relationship of Emotional Responses with the Activation of Sensory Mechanisms during Interaction Processes with Virtual Products of Mass Distribution

Today it is clear that Virtual Products affect users in various dimensions from the activation of sensory mechanisms, the cognitive dimension, the ex-ecution of various temporary micro-processes of interaction, the way in which they transfer information until the experiences generated on them. Through the observation of the interaction processes carried out by a group of users on a website with a specific use in a learning environment and with the assignment of a task., There were detected at the end of the interaction the following factors: 1. People consciously described their experience accu-rately. 2) The activation of three dominant sensory mechanisms and their re-lationship with the emotional responses., The responses were derived from the experience. Networks were used to display and describe the information. The intention of these studies is to analyze how emotional responses are sys-temically related during the interaction processes of a person with virtual ob-jects.

Lorena Olmos Pineda, Jorge Gil Tejeda

Conference Proceedings

Transfer of Information Derived from the Content of Virtual Products of Mass Distribution

The Web Sites have different characteristics, information content and can be designed with many different purposes. In educational environments this kind of objects can be used as virtual classrooms to organize information., It has been detected that one of the factors that modifies and guides the inter-action processes with a person as well as the activation of the Focus Atten-tion subsystem in these Virtual Products (VP) is the kind of information that these objects contain. On these preliminary studies based on the use of net-works, the behavior of the activation of sensory mechanisms in relation to the compositional elements that integrate the VP was analyzed in a group of university students in the Design area. The results shown that there was a transfer of information from TOP to BOTTOM type. The intention of these studies is to understand the particular behaviors that are derived from these massive objects.

Lorena Olmos Pineda, Jorge Gil Tejeda

Conference Proceedings

The Digitalization of Knitwear: Towards a redefinition of the conventional design boundaries

In the contemporary context, the knitting industry is dealing with a scarcity of 3d simulation tools, resulting, to date, in a sampling-based method where refinements to a specific design are often abandoned or compromised. While, in other design fields, virtual 3d modeling profitably interacts with hard-ware technology (e.g., 3d printers) [1], such tools do not easily connect to the conventional textile technology of industrial knitting machines [2].This paper explores the state of the art of knitted textiles digitalization, aiming to outline practical support to knitwear design practice with a specific focus on pos-sible digital tools to integrate design and fabrication prerogatives.

Giulia Lo-Scocco, Giovanni Maria Conti, Martina Motta

Conference Proceedings

The Effects of Visual or Auditory Interruption on Task Performance - Combination of Behavior Data and Eye Movement Analysis

Interruptions are prevalent phenomena in complex human-computer interaction. And various studies have proved that interruptions have negative effects on user performance. Therefore, study on the law of interruption in the field of human-computer interaction has certain guiding significance of enhancing working efficiency. Our study examined the effects of interruption modality (visual or auditory) on performance of primary task (visual) and interruption task itself to determine which modality was less disruptive. An experiment was carried out to explore the difference between two interruption modalities. The results demonstrated that different interruption modalities caused similar disruptive effects on performance of primary task, but auditory modality was more disruptive than visual modality on performance of interruption task. Our findings indicated that intra-modal interruption was a better way than cross-modal interruption in visual primary task.

Huimei Jing, Xiaoxi Du, Xiaozhou Zhou, Chengqi Xue

Conference Proceedings

Ergonomic Evaluation Index System for Fighter Planes Cockpit Touch Screens

Touch screens have gradually replaced interactive devices such as buttons and keyboards in the cockpit with natural and intuitive characteristics. Touch interaction also may lead to more head-down time and unintended touch. However, on the battlefield, the lives of pilots are affected by the efficiency of touch interaction. The purpose of this study is to establish and verify metrics to evaluate the usability of the cockpit touch screen. These metrics cover the pilots ' cognitive decision-making, operational performance, physiological performance, control and display resources of the fighter touch screen, etc. In this study, the ergonomic evaluation index of cockpit touch screen was established and verified by specific methods, which mainly constructed from the pilots, fighters, flight environment and other perspectives. Based on the traditional ergonomics evaluation theory and its application, and combined with the national standards and industry standards of aircraft touch screen, this study describes the new ergonomics evaluation metrics suitable for aircraft cockpit touch screen. According to the methods of construction and classification of metrics system of multiple research objects and fields, three levels evaluation metrics model was proposed by our research groups. The first-level metrics of the framework mainly include the cognitive layer, the interaction layer and the impression layer. With regards to the perception layer, it mainly focuses on the process of the pilot receiving information to complete the action, which includes perception/ cognition, memorization/ learning and action/response. Furthermore, the interaction layer mainly includes display attributes, control attributes and display-control comprehensive attributes, while the impression layer focuses on the subjective experience of the pilot after the operation. In addition, the evaluation index model of this study includes 3 first-level metrics, 6 second-level metrics, and 48 third-level metrics. In this study, 12 experts who specialized in the area of aviation efficiency evaluation were investigated to verify the effectiveness and reliability of the metrics framework from the aspects of the necessity, feasibility, identification of a single metric, and the integrity and redundancy overlap of the overall metrics system. The experimental results show that for every single index, they own high identification and feasibility, and no serious overlap between each index can be found. In terms of necessity, we combined with necessity coefficient data and expert interview after the experiment, and six third-level metrics with the coefficient of necessity lower than the general level were excluded. With respect to the metric framework, high integrity, low structural redundancy of the evaluation index system, and high independence between the evaluation structures can be found. Moreover, the overall evaluation index model has high reliability and validity. Overall, we study and establish an evaluation index system of the cockpit touch screen. It helps to find the problem of design parameters during the cockpit touch screen design，and improve the operational performance and survival probability of pilots.

Fei Wang, Wenzhe Tang, Ruoyu Hu, Zhiman Zhu, Xiuhang Xu, Chengqi Xue

Conference Proceedings

Speech + Posture: A Method for Interaction with Multiple and Large Interactive Displays

Multiple or Large displays play an important role in collaboration scenarios, because they can provide more display space. However, they are challenging concerning effective manipulating and managing the display contents, particularly when the displays are beyond the users' reachable region and operational limit region. In this work, we explore a particular interactive input combination for multiple or large displays, the Speech + Posture interactive input mode. We integrate postures to point to target display areas and phonetic keywords to designate display contents. This method makes interactive input commands concise and explicit, and it can support interaction with multiple or large interactive displays effectively.

Xiaoxi Du, Lesong Jia, Weiye Xiao, Xiaozhou Zhou, Mu Tong, Jinchun Wu, Chengqi Xue

Conference Proceedings

Bio-Augmented Materiality. Towards the Next Biomimicry

In the "century of biotechnology", a new form of "bio-digital industry" is emerging in which, thanks to increasingly sophisticated, digitized, nano and biosynthetic technologies, it becomes possible to analyze and reproduce the generative, chemical, physical and molecular processes underlying natural mechanisms [1]. Furthermore, contemporary biosciences are increasingly abandoning a predominantly descriptive character, transforming themselves into quantitative or engineering disciplines, developing tools (hardware and software), interests, and working ways that bring the scientific field closer to the design one as never before [2]. Therefore, new scenarios and opportunities for innovation open up to design, given by new technologies and new experimental domains of convergence with contemporary biosciences. Opportunities that translate into new hybrid concretizations, placed in the space between the synthetic and biological dimensions and that – exploiting the chance to confer objects, buildings and cities the characteristics and functionality of the living – aim to design a more sustainable future from an environmental and ecological, but also ethical, social and cultural points of view.Starting from this context and supported by theoretical background and related examples, the proposed paper joins the debate on emerging material revolution – that extends computational and biological principles to matter itself, becoming intrinsically sensitive, active, programmable [3] – and aims to explain how the informed relations between digital, physical and natural worlds are today changing the design practice, as well as the sustainability paradigm. In particular, the new concept of "Bio-Augmented Materiality" is presented, which refers to future products no longer made of parts with distinct functions but as "material systems" in which material-product-performance are designed as a single entity through information, growth and adaptation to the context.On the one hand, besides objects equipped with artificial intelligence, materials themselves may be informed and rewritten by computational facilities (e.g. cognitive computing, next-generation computer visualization) and digital procedures (e.g. digital fabrication techniques, digital material representations, algorithmic form-generation methods), resulting in hybrid, mono-material but heterogeneous system able to react, adapt and elaborate data as natural ones [4]. The connection between digital and physical (material) spheres results in aesthetically and functionally augmented materials, which living and intelligent qualities are given by the intrinsic properties of the matter itself.On the other hand, developments in scientific disciplines as molecular biology, genetics or synthetic biology extend the properties of the digital world to nature, which becomes understandable to the last detail, programmable and manipulable. This lead to the future possibility to use biological matter and organisms as interactive interfaces (bio-sensors and bio-actuators) instead of synthetic ones. At the same time, biological and biomechanical processes through which nature functions, can be transferred to products from the material itself (like growth, repair, mutation, replication, biodegradability) and can be inspirational for intelligent behaviours [5]. Thus, the products of the future will be hybrid material systems, customizable and context-specific, able to embody almost all the degrees of freedom of a natural phenomenon, grown rather than assembled, computerized rather than adapted, biological rather than synthetic; radically changing the way they are thought, designed and manufactured. This conceptual mutation is considered a possible opportunity to materialize a new design system inspired by nature in creating products and processes integrated with the environment and facing contemporary complexity. The paper so paves the way to the next biomimicry in which multidisciplinary research strategies and the ability to code and decode life principles are helpful for sustainable scenarios, not simply aimed to reduce the human impact on the ecosystem, rather enhance nature through original forms of cooperation and integration between human, biology and machines.1.Estèvez, A., Navarro, D.: Biomanufacturing the Future: Biodigital Architecture & Genetics. Procedia Manufacturing, 12, 7-16 (2017)2.De Lorenzo, V.: La Biologia Sintetica come nuovo quadro interpretativo dei sistemi vienti. Istituto Lombardo-Rendiconti di Scienze, 148, 167-183 (2014)3.Tibbits, S.: Active Matter. The MIT Press, Cambridge - US (2017)4.Oxman, N.: Towards a Material Ecology. In: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the ACADIA, pp. 19-20. ACADIA, New York (2013)5.Lucibello, S., Ferrara, M., Langella, C., Cecchini, C., Carullo, R.: Bio-Smart Materials: the binomial of the future. In: Karwowski, W., Ahram, T. (Eds.) Intelligent Human Systems Integration, pp. 745-750. Springer, Berlin (2018)

Carmen Rotondi

Conference Proceedings

Design through the layers: Smart textiles for contemporary design solutions and sustainable consumption processes

"As individual consumers, one of the most responsible actions we can take to protect the planet is to extend the life of the things we already use." Taking under advise-ment the indication of Rose Marcario, CEO of Patagonia, the Salewa Metro System project aims to analyse and understand which aesthetic, functional and technical char-acteristics must be integrated in a garment to ensure maximum longevity, counteract-ing the trend towards massive consumption of contemporary society. Today the tex-tile and fashion industry is the least sustainable and most polluting among the entire industrial system, both considering the production side where "every phase of its production chain threatens our planet" (Shen, 2014), and that of consumption, which hardly adopts or induces habits that contribute to the cause of a more equitable fash-ion system. Starting from a stylistic and product analysis of the so-called "vintage" sector, the aesthetic and functional characteristics that allow a garment to remain de-sirable, regardless of the fashion cycles, have been defined. Quality, functionality, style and sustainability are critical factors both from an environmental and also a commercial point of view, if we consider the ever-increasing sensitivity of the market to issues related to the protection of the planet. In the hyper-connected contemporary society, the ever-increasing search for technologies and materials related to well-being and health, in contrast with an extremely tiring urban environment, have been ana-lysed together with the latest growing fashion trends as “athleisure”, where the de-mand for stylistic freedom, comfort and sporting performance is central. The Salewa Metro System project is a collection of urban and sporty, convertible and multifunc-tional outerwear composed of three layers of fabric that can be coupled according to the conditions of the external environment. The technical analysis of the layering system, that is the technical garments with which mountaineers are equipped, has generated the guidelines for the development of a collection that starts from pure technical performance, smoothing out the most extreme accents (useful only in situa-tions of extreme meteorological hostility) to then propose itself to an urban and low mountain market. The use of smart materials and nano textile technologies has made it possible to create a layered system of garments with different functions that can always guarantee the best conditions in which to make the human body work. Used correctly, a good sequence of layers provides protection from environmental atmos-pheric agents and pollutants, perfect skin transpiration as well as the conservation and dissipation of body heat. The project was carried out in collaboration with the Salewa sportswear company, and the garments are designed to remain intact as long as possi-ble, prepared for care, repairs and replacement of parts. They remain aesthetically at-tractive in the long term thanks to the classic stylistic choices that can be modified according to the occasion. They are always upgradeable in performance: the individual textile components are always replaceable. They tolerate aging well, have a long-life cycle and hit the market objectives together with increasingly design inputs for a more sustainable fashion process.

Rossana Gaddi, Giovanni Maria Conti

Conference Proceedings

Distributed Ledger Technology in Autonomous Driving: A Security Protection Layer

Cybersecurity in autonomous driving is of utmost importance since a hacked self-driving car could turn into a remote-controlled weapon. Appropriate measures must be taken and implemented to ensure future road safety. The substantially shorter renewal cycles in the hardware (e.g., sensors, computer hardware) and especially software domain compared to the current service life of a vehicle represent a further challenge The use of blockchain technology could enhance security in autonomous driving and thus reduce cybersecurity risks. This paper studies current developments of Swiss pilot projects in autonomous driving and discusses existing solutions for increasing safety of autonomous driving through blockchain.

Nicola Raemy, Galia Kondova

Conference Proceedings

Icon Style Transformation Based on Generative Adversarial Networks

The icon is an important part of the user interface, and they are a carrier between the user and the interface. In the process of icon design, designers need to take into account both its versatility and uniqueness, and an excellent icon is a perfect blend of function and aesthetics. In recent years, with the great success of generative adversarial networks in computer vision, it has become possible to assist designers in icon creation with the help of artificial intelligence technology. In this study, we constructed icon datasets containing 40,000 samples and improved the structure and loss function based on the MUINT to finally achieve the style conversion task between different styles of icons. The research results show that the improved model can effectively improve the quality and diversity of generated icons. Meanwhile, a questionnaire survey of 34 people with icon design experience proves that our research results can assist designers to a certain extent in the related work. This study can be used as a basis for the intersection of deep generative model and icon design, and we conclude the paper with suggestions and prospects for future work.

Hongyi Yang, Xinyue Wang, Chengqi Xue, Xiaoying Yang

Conference Proceedings

Design of a VR-based training system for the evacuation of an engineering laboratory building

This project designs a training system to perform an evacuation due to the presence of a possible structural fire using virtual reality. To develop the proposal, the software and hardware tools with which the experiment was carried out were initially selected, this selection was made taking into account the criteria of the ISO 25010 Standard and the AHP methodology was used based on the opinion of some experts in the area. The training system was applied to a sample size of 68 people. It was evidenced that the application of the concept of serious games integrated with virtual reality significantly improves the participants' learning by generating a higher level of immersion in the emergency. In addition, considering the average time that participants took to learn the evacuation system of the building with the developed application, a positive impact was obtained in areas such as: productivity, economy, culture, health and technology.

Yulyana Rodríguez Bautista, Juan Fernando Castro Medina, Diego Andrés Quintero Ardila, Carol Natalia Rangel Santamaría, Sebastian Alberto Peláez Gómez

Conference Proceedings

A Business Process Model Driven Chatbot Architecture

Modern businesses consist of many interacting processes which aim to realize business goals. Therefore, to yield the best possible result, organizing processes in a structured business model is required. Business process modeling notation (BPMN) is a widely used business modeling technique based on simple business and logic specifications understandable not only by domain experts but also to the broader audience. Although it provides support for the process execution, many BPMN models serve only for documentation purposes.This paper positions the lack of coordination between the process execution and the front-end interface as one of the drivers of slow BPMN adoption. To close the gap between execution and interface, we present a system architecture that provides external task automation and interactive human task completion using a chatbot structure powered by natural language processing (NLP) and BPMN. We have evaluated the performance of the proposed architecture on the process of internship applications for the Faculty of Informatics in Pula.

Srđan Daniel Simić, Toni Starčić, Aldo Ferlatti, Darko Etinger, Nikola Tankovic

Conference Proceedings

Generative Adversarial Network Algorithms in Art: Data Video

The recent development of machine learning to synthesize the dataset and manipulate images into new works of art, bringing essential changes in visual art and the method of art creation. The paper aims at applying the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) to the new media art in particular the image generation and video synthesis through latent space interpolation, through the indirect training in GAN to process a series of still images as the dataset, the generated work presents the ability of machine algorithms in learning and processing the image creation, as well as the next stage of machine-made art. The generated images through latent space interpolation are the artificial imitation among the images by the machine, indicating a new form of image interpretation and representation where human’s intervention in art creation is restricted in the pre-data selection and post-data appreciation.

Lai Man Tin

Conference Proceedings

Psychophysiological parameters for emotion recognition – Conception and first evaluation of a measurement environment

Emotions are of great importance for human interaction. The recognition of emotions is an essential basis for the social interaction of people, relevant at all levels of human interaction. However, the ability varies greatly among people, even to the point of a pathological deficit in autism (e.g., symptoms of "social blindness"). Furthermore, it is also an interesting topic in the current COVID-19 pandemic-situation with its restrictions regarding personal contacts and the resulting increase of digital contacts through online communication. For this reason, the measurement of emotions is of great interest for a wide variety of applications and, in particular, for product design or the development of trainings (e.g., for children with autism, leaders and managers, employees working in virtual teams etc.). The presented paper focuses on a concept and first evaluation of a measurement environment. Based on the objective emotional assessment (OEA) of Boucsein and his colleagues, a multidimensional approach was chosen for the developed concept. The studied psychophysiological measures were: cardiovascular (ECG) and electrodermal activity (EDA) as well as the forearm and neck electromyogram (EMG). In addition, the facial expression was recorded via camera. The results of a first evaluation (different tasks like a short game, a backward counting task, or thinking of different emotional contents) show, that the combination of the different measures was successful and promising for the use in further research. The study was able to show a need for improvement with regard to the derivation of the ECG (chest strap vs. adhesive electrodes). The design of the measuring environment can be seen as successful regarding the combination of the different psychophysiological measures and devices. In the future, an expansion with additional parameters such as pulse volume amplitude (PVA) or eye tracking will be considered.

Jonas Birkle, Ruben Weber, Knut Möller, Verena Wagner-Hartl

Conference Proceedings

Ambient Theory for Smart Cities: Is it a Good Theory?

This paper provides an evaluation of ambient theory for smart cities, based on a review of the research literature focusing on key criteria for “good theory.” The literature review is interdisciplinary in nature and a brief overview of ambient theory is provided across several domains including rhetoric, architecture, and smart cities. Ambient theory, as applied to date in the context of smart cities and environments, is evaluated in relation to criteria identified, describes, and employed by other researchers. A mix of “good theory” elements, drawn from a variety of researchers, forms the basis for consideration and evaluation of ambient theory for smart cities. Findings provide a promising outcome and a rich and vibrant space for research and practice is identified in this paper, available now for inquiry, debate, evaluation, further testing and validation, contestation, development, refinement, and expansion.

H. Patricia Mckenna

Conference Proceedings

External Human-Machine-Interfaces on Automated Vehicles: Which message and perspective do pedestrians in crossing situations understand best?

Future automated vehicles (AVs) could be equipped with external human-machine-interfaces (eHMIs) that are supposed to facilitate the communication of AVs with surrounding road users. It has been argued that they might support pedestrians' crossing decisions (Dey et al., 2020). However, in order to achieve that, it is key that the messages conveyed are easily understandable to all road users, under all circumstances. In that regard, there is a discussion about_what_ message should be communicated in such situations: Should the eHMI communicate both, the intention to yield as well as the intention not to yield to the pedestrian, or just one of these messages? Another question is_how _these messages should be communicated: Should the message refer to the pedestrian (i.e., egocentric: “You can(not) go”) or the AV (i.e., allocentric “I (do not) intend to yield”)? And, of course, it is vital that eHMIs are understood even under high cognitive load, as pedestrians might, e.g., be distracted (Dommes, 2019).Accordingly, an earlier study explored the effects of message and perspective on the understandability of _text_-based eHMIs while taking cognitive load into account (Eisma et al., 2021). It was found that egocentric messages were understood best and that their cognitive memory task had no significant effect. In order to test the validity of these findings, we conducted a conceptual replication employing nonverbal eHMIs (which do not exclude persons who cannot read a certain language) and using a visuospatial memory task (as visual load is prominent in traffic).The present study examined which message and perspective of _icon_-based eHMIs pedestrians understand best in terms of comprehension speed and accuracy. Participants in an online experiment (N = 85; M(age) = 36.4) repeatedly indicated crossing decisions in reaction to images of AVs which were equipped with one of six different icon-based eHMIs. The images depicted a crossing situation and were taken from the perspective of a pedestrian. The eHMIs differed in their message about the intended behavior of the AV (yielding/non-yielding) and their perspective (egocentric/allocentric/ambiguous). Each decision task was embedded in a visuospatial memory task of varying difficulty (low/medium/high) which manipulated the participants’ cognitive load. The participants’ response times, crossing decisions, and subjective ratings of clarity for each eHMI icon were measured.Our results indicated that pedestrians understood those eHMI messages better and faster that tell them to cross the street compared to those that instructed them not to do so. In terms of perspective, egocentric eHMIs were considerably better understood objectively as well as subjectively than allocentric and ambiguous ones. There was no difference between the ambiguous and allocentric icons. The participants’ understanding of the different eHMI icons did not differ significantly depending on cognitive load.We conclude that icon-based eHMIs are understood as correct and quick as text-based ones. We advise caution regarding eHMIs which communicate that the AV is not yielding / that the pedestrian cannot cross. This study corroborates previous evidence that egocentric eHMIs are understood best. Further, eHMIs are understood equally correct and quick even when the observer is cognitively loaded.

Sebastian Ludwig Weiß, Daniel Eisele, Tibor Petzoldt

Conference Proceedings

Dematerialized meeting places and digital design for interaction and participation

In the context of webdesign for public utility communication, the website is a necessary tool for a startup or an institution that turns to users with a diversified profile and with uneven levels of digital skills. In this compound, more than in online communication for companies or professionals, the website is configured as the place of provision of services and information and, as happens for physical places, it must be easy to find, it must comply with accessibility criteria for all and allow users to feel at ease and give them the certainty of receiving safe information and being protected while using the "digital place". Hence, a website becomes the place of disambiguation and in the Covid-era, the place for meeting and participation. The website of a museum, for example, or a university, like physical places, needs to meet inclusion and sustainability criteria, it must be smart, flexible, adaptable, renewable and with features that allow energy savings. Even if dematerialized, the objects that make up a website must follow the rules of the real world in order to be understood and used without an instruction booklet. Visual design adapts to the laws of perception, and calibrates the elements of the design pattern, colors and font families on the principles of fruition for all users. Designers identify valuable design strategies based on inclusion criteria. This contribution describes a design experience conducted by a group of young designers as part of a thesis path in Communication Design. A summary will be presented of how the new generations of visual designers for the web, in order to achieve accessibility and inclusion objectives and which allow the website to be easily recognized and remembered, use two fundamental elements of design: digital materials, that is the design pattern used to build the wireframe and the visual layout, and the strategies of value, that is, objectives, actions and content that driving and characterizing the website.

Raffaella Massacesi

Conference Proceedings

Creating Tactile Interaction Surfaces for the Origo Steering Wheel Concept using CWI and EHWs

As the automotive industry transitions to electric and autonomous vehicles (SAE 2-3) more and more information needs to be reviewed by the driver in real-time. Conventional information presentation techniques are not ideal for reviewing this type of information as it lacks multimodal and cross modal presentation. Haptics, one of the key interaction modalities, is often over-looked as it is considered non-functional in a vibration heavy environment, such as a moving vehicle. However, modern techniques of generating, medi-ating, and delivering tactile feedback have greatly improved in the last five years. Localizing techniques such as Constructive Wave Interference (CWI) and mediation technique of Embedded Haptic Waveguides (EHWs) can be combined to create reliable and consistent tactile output in even the most challenging environments. In this research authors utilize these techniques to create tactile feedback zones on the steering wheel, which can be used to relay haptic signals to the driver with little to no visual demand. These zones were 3D-printed onto an intelligent adaptive (Origo) steering wheel. Authors com-pared the efficiency of the Origo Wheel with the onboard wheel of a Porsche Cayenne, using identical actuation components while the vehicle was being driven on the Nokia Tires Track. Compared to the Porsche Cayenne's original steering wheel, the Origo wheel was able to mediate actuation to the driver’s point of contact more efficiently which yielded better driving and secondary task performance. Using the Origo wheel was also rated to have required low-er cognitive load in completing the IVIS tasks in the moving vehicle.

Ahmed Farooq, Hasse Sinivaara, Mikko Laaksonen, Hanna Virtainen, Arto Hippula, Veikko Surakka, Roope Raisamo

Conference Proceedings

Icon Similarity Algorithm Based on Skeleton Comparison

Icon plays an crucial role in infographics, which additionally carries essential functions in the human-computer graphical user interface (GUI). However, too similar icon is easy to trigger confusion in the process of using. In this paper, we explored the use of the cognitive rules from global to local based on the theory of topological perception, and built a computational discrimination tool from the human perception to describe similarity. Screening out icons that are too similar is the primary purpose of this research to avoid errors in use. We utilized skeleton algorithm to extract the global features of icons. The optimal subsequence bijection and Hungarian algorithm were used to compare the global skeleton of the icon. Accordingly, the similarity between the icons was calculated. To verify the proposed algorithm, we conducted a subjective cognitive experiment. Participants were asked to rank the similarity of the experimental materials and compare the results with the calculation outcomes. Results demonstrate that the proposed calculation methodology based on skeleton comparison is close to the subjective cognition, which can effectively describe the human perception of icon similarity.

Huang Shan, Haiyan Wang, Chengqi Xue, Xia Shuang

Conference Proceedings

Identifying Complex Patterns in Online Information Retrieval Processes

We define a computable benchmark framework that replicates the behavior of users as they proceed through the alternatives ranked by a search engine and highlights the problems faced by artificial intelligence techniques to categorize the retrieval patterns generated by users endowed with different information assimilation capacities. The research is developed through three specific stages.First, we define a decision theoretical model that relates the threshold values determining the retrieval behavior of decision makers (DMs) to the distance in terms of semantic similarity between the descriptions observed in the snippets and the ideal ones considered by the user. The model is designed to highlight the complexity of the search process defined by DMs, who must consider combinations of the variables defining the alternatives, both observed and expected, together with the number of satisficing alternatives aimed to be observed. Second, we design a set of heuristic algorithms that mimic the online information retrieval behavior of DMs as reflected in their click through rates (CTRs). We illustrate how requiring DMs to observe two satisficing alternatives provides a sufficient approximation to their CTRs. Adding a third alternative delivers an almost identical set of CTRs to those displayed by DMs ([1], [2]). The mimicking quality of the heuristic algorithms prevails as alternatives are added up to include the ten ranked within the first page of search results. Third, the set of heuristic algorithms provides two different strings of data, the pages clicked by the DMs and, more importantly, a numerical representation of each of the observations and evaluations that determine the retrieval behavior of DMs. We illustrate how, even when providing several artificial intelligence techniques with both strings of data, the models face considerable problems categorizing DMs correctly as their information assimilation capacities are enhanced.References[1] Chitika, The value of Google result positioning. Chitika Insights June 7, 2013. Chitika, Westborough (2013) Available at perma.cc/7AGCHTDH [2] B. Dean, We analyzed 5 million Google search results. Here’s what we learned about organic click through rate (2019) Available at https://backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats

Debora Di Caprio, Francisco Javier Santos Arteaga

Conference Proceedings

Industrial Perspectives on Government Open Data Strategy Effectiveness

The main objective of this paper is to impart new insights into the factors influencing the effectiveness of Open government data (OGD) strategy and build a predictive model for promoting strategy effectiveness. In the realm of OGD, presently, there is no de facto standardized strategy framework for the government to create open data in response to users’ needs and there is no predictive model that can be used to forecast the OGD effective strategy. Fifteen factors from four themes that shape the OGD strategy were prudently chosen from the literature and included in a survey distributed to the OGD users in the private sector in the US. The four themes identified from the literature are: data quality, technical standards, capacity building and measurements and maturity modeling. Then the most effective factors from these four themes are selected to build a mixed model for the prediction of OGD strategy. Overall, the effect of the models from the individual four themes were found to have significant impact on the effectiveness of the OGD strategy. Where there are only five factors from these four themes are found to have significant impact on strategy effectiveness and used to develop a predictive five-factor model. These results set the scene for the government to direct its resources to the concomitant barriers and the most effective TTPs. These observations should be considered when building new OGD strategy. The development of such model is critical for remediating OGD formidable challenges that are continually changing due to the inherit dynamism in the policies associated with the OGD.

Mona Mohamed

Conference Proceedings

Investigating users’ color perception in optical see-through augmented reality:The Effect of ambient light on interface color

The light perceived by users in optical see-through augmented reality (AR) comes from the mixed light of the real-world and AR devices, so the AR interface elements will be affected by the real-world light, which may lead to the color distortion of virtual graphics. This paper focuses on the user's perception of AR interface color and the influence of ambient light on AR graphics color. We conducted a user behavior study and recruited 18 participants to observe eight AR colors under three ambient illuminations through Microsoft HoloLens. Participants need to complete the color matching task, and match the color perceived in AR with the palette rendered on iPad. Our analysis shows that red and yellow are relatively stable in AR, and the perception difference between participants in these two-color regions is small; In addition, we also found that the ambient light intensity only affects a few colors, such as blue and purple, but has little effect on most colors. This study can provide a reference for the design of AR interface color coding.

Yuan Cao, Xiaozhou Zhou

Conference Proceedings

Design of Smart Portable Sunshade for Light and Heat Comfort Improvement

With the development of architectural technology and the advance of people’s aesthetic taste of building, floor-to-ceiling windows design have currently become a popular choice of large buildings such as office buildings or university libraries. Ensuring beauty of the building, however, floor-to-ceiling windows can’t block direct sunlight.The ensuing problem is that more and more students and office workers are suffering from direct sunlight while working at specific areas.A research is conducted on a campus library focused on the students’ attitude towards light and heat environment and helped the author determined the existing light and heat problems in working areas.The results of the research showed that almost everyone has problem with the direct sunlight. As the sunlight shines from different angles because of the rotation of Earth, every area has a specific time period that the sunlight is directly shined on. During that period, direct sunlight has a significant negative influence on whoever working in the area. None of the existing designs can block the sunlight at a specific area during a specific time period.Based on the pain points of the working process, this study designed a portable product called “SUNSHADE” for improving light and heat comfort. The main functional design is as following.1.portable size: The sunshade curtain is hidden inside the device when it’s not used. So the device has a shape of cuboid when closed, thus making it easy to carry, and can be placed anywhere the user wants.2.easy to control: The SUNSHADE has a corresponding mobile phone application which can easily control this device to lift or not.3.automatic adjustment: The design can automatically change the lifted height of the sunshade curtain according to environment parameters collected by sensors built inside the device in order to keep a specific area covered from direct sunlight. This auto mode can be turned on or switched off on the mobile phone application.4.information collection and display: When a relative large amount of SUNSHADE is used in a specific area, like a library, SUNSHADE can collect the data of environmental parameters such as temperature and humidity and publish them on the application, allowing user to be informed of the latest information of building environment.The working efficiency of this SUNSHADE design is tested in a thermal simulation. We run the simulation according to the real size of library and the exact size of the product. The results suggest the product has expected efficiency in blocking sunlight.The principle significance of the study is as follows:The study discusses the pain points faced by urban officers and students. The study focuses on the indoor thermal evaluation. The study works on the improving of indoor light and heat comfort by designing a product, which is relatively less accomplished ever. By using such technology, the proposed design not only provides a solution to the light and heat problem in urban buildings, but also provides an insight of the internet of future intelligent household appliances, aiming at building a better living and working environment.Therefore, this study is an innovative design targeting intelligent household appliances.

Yibo Wang, Jiao Xue, Xinyu Zhao, Xiao Hu, Chen Ze, Wen Shikang

Conference Proceedings

Comparative Study of Decision Tree Models for Bearing Fault Detection and Classification

Fault diagnosis of bearings is essential in reducing failures and improving functionality and reliability of rotating machines. As vibration signals are non-linear and non-stationary, extracting features for dimension reduction and efficient fault detection is challenging. This study aims at evaluating performance of decision tree-based machine learning models in detection and classification of bearing fault data. A machine learning approach combining the tree-based classifiers with de-rived statistical features is proposed for localized fault classification. Statistical features are extracted from normal and faulty vibration signals though time do-main analysis to develop tree-based models of AdaBoost (AD), classification and regression trees (CART), LogitBoost trees (LBT), and Random Forest trees (RF). The results confirm that machine learning classifiers have satisfactory performance and strong generalization ability in fault detection, and provide practical models for classify running state of the bearing.

Armin Moghadam, Fatemeh Davoudi Kakhki

Conference Proceedings

The Application of the Aesthetic Measures of Interface Layout in Drawing 2.5D Graphic

2.5D graphic or Isometric graphic, as a common graphic expression method, has been fully developed in 2021 and has become a prevalent UI illustration element. With the rapid development of computer technology, many two-dimensional graphic images are analyzed and calculated digitally, and integrated data are efficiently and automatically generated. Aesthetic evaluation starts from subjective perceptual evaluation to rational digital calculation. In order to better calculate the aesthetic evaluation of 2.5D graphic, combining various aesthetic evaluation researches in the two-dimensional plane and the existing aesthetic index evaluation methods, this paper puts forward the idea of applying the two-dimensional plane evaluation method to the element layout 2.5D graphic. The research refers to the 13 aesthetic measures in the interface layout proposed by the NGO. In this study ,we selects the 2.5D graphic in 11 existing web pages from the design website as the samples, and extracts two-dimensional layout diagram of these samples. Then the beauty index calculation of the samples layout data found that the 13 aesthetic measures all have significant characteristics. In the experimental part, this study chose to take the measure of balance in the aesthetic measures as an example. By analyzing the numerical setting of the calculation formula, we designed 16 experimental as samples, and 10 design-related practitioners are recruited as subjects for aesthetic evaluation. Finally, the standardized data is fitted with manual evaluation results. The experimental results show a certain similarity with the previous sample data calculations, which proves the applicability of this evaluation method and lays the foundation for the standardized calculation of the beauty of 2.5D graphic. Future research can be carried out on this basis, it is necessary to study a set of overall aesthetic evaluation methods of the system, which can be more intuitively applied to the evaluation and generation of 2.5D graphic aesthetics. When 2.5D material forms a unified material library, the computer can automatically perform aesthetic calculations and layouts to generate the required 2.5D graphic based on the needs and user aesthetics, reducing labor costs and ensuring the stable quality.

Zhiman Zhu, Fei Wang, Ruoyu Hu, Ningyue Peng, Chengqi Xue

Conference Proceedings

Improvement of Robot Service Route

With the development of intelligent robots in modern society, the application of robots has speedily spread from industry to service industry and enhance the quality and convenience of life. However, when practically applied in restaurants or coffee shops, it is easy to meet problems, including overlong delivery time, wrong location, challenging setting, etc. Most service robots adopt SLAM technology, which is for localization and map construction simultaneously. This research explores optimizing the service robot's time and space axis parameters using ZENBO Robot in experiments. Furthermore, through 6σ architecture to refine by the Taguchi method to optimize SLAM technology and the time axis parameter of the user interface. In the actual use situation, experiments with other impact factors to improve UI/UX problems to make the service robot minimize error when advancing. After improvement, the UI/UX of the service robot has improved. Moreover, the delivery time is improved by 47%, accuracy and stability are improved by 65%, and it provided users with simplified setting steps and the environment's best parameters. This research proves that using the Taguchi method can effectively improve the performance of service robots in actual applications.Keywords: Service Robot · SLAM · UI/UX · Taguchi method

Zih-Ling He, Jui-Hung Cheng, Jia-Hong Shen, Yu-Xuan Hsueh

Conference Proceedings

Demonstrator for a Collaborative Human-Robot Picking System

This paper introduces a demonstrator for a Collaborative Human-Robot Picking application consisting of a robot in front of a rack picking known objects into a bin. The major part of the system demonstrates the execution of picking orders carried out by human pickers and picking robots in a common workspace. A further part includes the training of Convolutional Neural Networks for object detection. A central concept of the system is an Emergency Call enabling the robot to request help if problems occur during object detection or grasping. The main goals of this demonstrator are to evaluate the interaction between human pickers and robots and to test the performance of object detection.

Mathias Rieder, Norbert Bartneck

Conference Proceedings

Are answers more important than questions? Planning an empathy design innovation course for young students

This paper presents the planning of an innovation course for elementary school students. The course is designed and organized by the Beijing Normal University in collaboration with the China Soong Ching Ling Science and Culture Centre for Young People. This course aims to foster children's empathy and creative thinking. There are three core teaching phases: theme exploration, design expression, and prototyping. In addition, the research team applies NeuroDesign techniques (i.e., fNIRS) to quantitatively measure students' development of empathy and innovation to assess the effectiveness of teaching and learning. Educators would refer to this planning for designing other educational courses on fostering creativity.

Jing Qiu, Jingyang Li, Zhao Xu, Ruonan Huang, Ruikang Wang, Lingjie Wu, Xiaojian Wu, Fan Yang, Zhejun Zhang, Larry Leifer, Wei Liu

Conference Proceedings

Directive Management In Complex Systems to Promote the Level of Use of Techniques In Operations

Many organizations have fragmented processes that make it difficult for managers to do their jobs, and a similar situation supports academics, among other things, struggling to describe the static functionality of the processes that support research (Garvin 1998). An alternative to address this problem is the use of socio-technical methods to achieve changes in product-service systems (Qiang and others 2020) together with the concept of trans-complex organizations that are addressed in management science as objects of study. (Bravo et al 2020), which provides a viable option to address the objective of this study: Understand the limitations of the interdisciplinary directive management of the academy and the manufacturing sector, in complex systems, to promote the level of use of techniques in operations.The initial hypothesis is that there is a low level of use of operational techniques in manufacturing companies, due to weaknesses in academic-business operational processes, which hinder research and business management. The current study is an ethnographic research, based on the socio-technical system (Bostrom and Heinen 1977), applied, when carrying out the unfolding of the organizational direction, to favor the implementation and development of operational managerial techniques in Venezuelan cement manufacturing processes , through the interdisciplinary academic-business effort, under an open systems approach, facing three important socio-technical categories: the unfolding of the organizational structure, the technological support supports to the management and the individual human context, in the which includes interdisciplinary work through surveys of expert personnel in the field of operations, both in academia and in companies.From the interpretive proposal and the interview scripts applied, the content analysis, the code mapping and the ethnographic triangulation are obtained, the latter is obtained by comparing the aforementioned categories. The results show the need to adjust the policies, procedures and standards of Venezuelan cement companies to facilitate the use of managerial techniques as a guideline to improve organizational competitiveness; in addition, the option of counseling should be incorporated and, at the same time, take up the past experiences regarding training plans, good practices and exchange of indicators. Regarding universities, it is suggested to deepen research teaching, since the greatest evidence of a link to the business context is in the internship or internship programs.Finally, the research has two aspects of management support that cannot be separated: the first is the integration approach between both organizations and the second is associated with the incorporation of technology. Therefore, the hypothesis, at the end of the study, is valid regarding the situation regarding the low level of use of operational techniques and can be reversed when considering the proposals, generating opportunities for improvement in the Venezuelan business context to higher levels of competitiveness organizational.

Lloyd Morris, Olga Jasmin Salazar De Morris, Hernán Espejo Viñán

Conference Proceedings

Digital Environments for Biology Learning in High School

Currently, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, education has had to change the way of imparting knowledge to students, since the use of digital environments has been promoted, supported by digital tools that allow reaching meaningful learning. Therefore, the present investigation is carried out to know if using digital environments in Biology learning favors the teaching-learning process of First High School students, through the application of a quasi-experimental design in which two groups intervened: experimental and control. At the beginning of the intervention, a pre-test was carried out on the two groups, where it was found that there were no significant differences with respect to the marks obtained. Next, the digital environments were applied on the Gnomio platform supported by several digital tools such as: PowToon, Genially, Edpuzzle, Forums, where innovative methodologies were applied, the same that allowed promoting different learning styles in students. At the end of the course, the post-test was performed on both groups under study, identifying that there is a significant difference of 6.85 points between them, for which the alternative hypothesis was accepted, demonstrating that digital environments fostered the academic development of the participants. favoring their concentration and learning, which is reflected in the results of the evaluations.

Wilmer Quishpe, Mireya Zapata

Conference Proceedings

Biologically Inspired Automotive User Interfaces for Partially and Highly Automated Maneuver Gestures: Final Results and Outlook

Automated driving puts severe challenges on the design and testing of automotive user interfaces. In partially automated driving, the driver is still responsible for the vehicle control, but is strongly supported by technology. In highly automated driving, the driver can give control to the automation for a certain time and can get control back e.g., when the automation encounters limits. Despite great technological progress, a truly intuitive way to interact with these automated driving modes is still under research. Project Vorreiter is addressing this by using the inspiration of a rider and a horse to provide intuitive steering gestures on the steering wheel or an alternative device, which initiate maneuvers executed by the automation. These can be supervised, influenced or interrupted by the driver. The gestures are built up in a universal design approach, which helps all drivers, including beginners and drivers with disabilities. After an introduction into the overall philosophy and concept, the contribution focuses on a final step in the project, an overall evaluation of the concept in a driving simulator and presents new data especially on the comparison of swiping gestures and pushing gestures regarding false or true positive or negative detected gestures. Finally, a brief outlook sketches next steps with a new Wizard-of-Oz / theater vehicle.

Nicolas Daniel Herzberger, Marcel Usai, Michael Preutenborbeck, Ronald Meyer, Gina Wessel, Frank Flemisch

Conference Proceedings

Investigating the effect of targets’ spatial distribution on the performance of gesture interaction in virtual reality environment

The primary task of human-computer interaction is to point to graphical elements. Selecting the targets precisely is an important part of interactive tasks such as virtual simulation and virtual assembly. In actual application conditions, especially in virtual reality(VR) environment, how to accurately and effectively select target objects has already been a popular research topic in recent years. As one of the most crucial interaction technologies in human-computer interaction, gesture interaction is widely used in VR environment. Based on the gesture interaction with ray-casting feedback, this paper conducted a multi-factor experiment in VR environment to explore the effects on the performance of target selection tasks under different depths and different perspectives. Three depth levels of 1 m, 2.5 m, and 6 m were set in the experiment. The positions of 9 circular target objects were determined at 20° intervals in the horizontal and vertical viewing angle, and the vertical plane in front of the participants was divided into nine areas. The size of the target at different depth levels remains the same. Participants need to click on circular target objects in different viewing angle areas at different depth levels. We used the HTC-Vive head-mounted display and Noitom HI5 gloves as the experimental equipment and recruited 14 participants with normal vision in the experiment. The results show that the higher the depth level, the higher the pointing accuracy of gesture interaction with ray-casting feedback, and the closer the target object is to the visual center, the higher the pointing accuracy. In addition, the results show that the spatial distribution of the ray-casting interactive pointing deviation, the participants’ actual point position is lower than the target point position, and the deviation of the actual point position on the right side of the viewing angle is significantly higher than that on the left and middle positions. The research results have reference value for the spatial distribution of targets for gesture interactive tasks in VR environment.

Kai Chen, Xiaozhou Zhou, Chengqi Xue

Conference Proceedings

Virtual Environments in Learning the Biology of High School Students

This work analyzed the potential impact of virtual environments on learning biology at a high school. This case study was done at a secondary institution in Ecuador. A quantitative and descriptive study was carried out and two measuring instruments were applied to different populations. This work con-cluded that the educational community has favorable views about the use of technology as a learning strategy. Virtual environments were identified to positively affect meeting the class objectives and improve learning condi-tions such as interest, attention, and student motivation.

Marco Páez-Andrade, Kleber Pazos-Espinoza, Patricio Pérez-Silva, Carlos Ramos Galarza

Conference Proceedings

Neurodidactics technological tools

The integration of technological tools into the neurocreativity phases of Neurodidactics, propose to relate the teaching of mathematics and the improvement of meaningful learning in students at the secondary level. The study in this research is based on an exploratory, descriptive, and pre-experimental methodology carried out into a high school intervention group. The application of the tests showed the numerical values increased the quantitative analysis.

Patricio Pérez-Silva, Kleber Pazos-Espinoza, Marco Páez-Andrade, Carlos Ramos Galarza

Conference Proceedings

Machine Learning improves use of Haptic Glove for engineers in Virtual Reality

Haptic gloves with force feedback represent new and immersive devices for Virtual Reality (VR). They enable interaction with virtual objects and have a positive impact on virtual engineering processes. The position of the hand and its specific finger positions, such as grip types, are tracked in virtual space dur-ing assembly processes. Implementing rule-based recognition of these grip types is complex and error-prone due to hard- and software limitations. Ma-chine Learning (ML) can support engineers during the use and implementation of these applications by classifying user input as specific grip types. Two ML algorithms, one Neural Network (NN) and one Support Vector Machine (SVM), that detect nine grip types at runtime by only using the joint angles of the gloves exoskeleton as features, were developed and compared with a rule-based algorithm. Our research shows, that the ML algorithm reach a very high accuracy with only reading one feature compared to the rule-based algorithm.

Kathrin Konkol, Andreas Geiger, Tim Ginzler

Conference Proceedings

Design and the appropriation of 3D printing techniques in the management of an innovative product system in the field of wind musical instruments

This paper aims to contribute to the innovation of the musical instruments sector of the wind family, including historical and semantic references from the past and the present, unites signs in a chain of logical associations and qualifies old concepts with a renewed identity. The uncertainty, ephemerality and complexity that characterize current reality call for a permanent research of production, opting for alternative, symbolic and process paths, which instigate the development of innovative and sustainable products. Music exalts the symbiosis between the musician and his instrument, so the quality of the performance is subordinated to this relationship and to the confidence that the instrumentalist exercises in the handling and in the domain of the artifact that becomes a true extension of his body. Mass production and the consequent monopolization of the market by major international brands have contributed to a standardization of the way of playing or even of sound. This phenomenon, in some specific areas of music, can correspond to a loss of quality. On the other hand, a critical analysis of the differences and particularities of each musician reveals that he may need to have a personalized instrument. The research validates a production and distribution system that can effectively respond to requests for customized products. For this reason, it is a revealing, revolutionary proposal and an alternative to the solutions that are on the market, following the needs of each client. This study aims to demonstrate the role of design in the management of rapid production technologies for the creation of niche products with a high degree of customization. The development and diffusion of fast production technologies - such as 3d printers - and the implementation in the music industry in the creation of components - such as mouthpieces and mouthpieces for wind instruments - can be an opportunity to propose a new scenario for the creation and product distribution. An action that will directly benefit from the possibility of customization. Today, there are some international brands that, for example, in the case of instruments from the saxophone and clarinet families, are producing mouthpieces with 3d printing technologies, using filaments or biocompatible resins that compete with current mouthpieces produced in plastic or in ebonite. However, it seems that the issues of distribution and commercialization of these products have not reached the evolution and the potential that these ways of producing provide. The experience of the research team accumulated in previous projects - Almada trumpet project (2019) Shatron mute project (2020) - allow to understand the importance of the scope of music as an experimentation laboratory, validating principles, processes and methodologies that can later be applied to other fields of action of products and services. In Portugal, currently the sector of the production of musical instruments is essentially focused on the restoration of components and objects, so this proposal may reveal new values and a concrete business possibility for a sector in crisis and which is an integral part. of the country's memory. This action may be a response to the indisputable improvement of the wind musical products and, consequently, of the lutherie sector in Portugal. Following the foregoing considerations, the following research question was considered: To what extent can design contribute to the effective improvement and innovation of the musical instruments sector in the wind family? Considering the research problem, this study aims to: 1) Producing a component like a mouthpiece for a wind musical instrument can offer important advantages for a distributor. 2) Increase the possibilities of product customization and bringing the qualities of the component closer to the most specific needs of each customer. 3) Reduce storage and stock requirements, making it possible to print only the components that can be sold.  4) Reverse the entire sales service much more personalized and close to the Customers.  5) Create a pilot model as a reference to be adapted to other realities. Based on the study's problems, the research question and the proposed objectives, it was considered possible to state the following hypothesis of this study: The modus operandi that crosses 3d printing techniques and the entrepreneurial initiative presents a methodological and operative singularity that confers a creative, experimental and innovative role in the customization and distribution of musical instruments.  As this is a co-design project, the intellectual property belongs to all members of the team. The eventual adaptation of the model should be negotiated with all the intervening institutions.

Liliana Soares, Ermanno Aparo, Rita Almendra

Conference Proceedings

Evaluation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas as a Fuel Input in a Mechanical Injection Diesel Internal Combustion Engine

In this research, the performance of an internal combustion engine with an adapta-tion for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) injection was analyzed. The automotive indus-try works on the development and improvement of internal combustion engines, both in their design, metrics, technology incorporation, among others. Part of the research is focused on testing different fuels to reduce emissions and preserve or improve op-erating parameters. Recent studies have shown that the incorporation of LPG in the combustion mixture of diesel engines reduces pollutant emissions and increases pow-er output. In Latin America, there is a significant population of mechanical injection engines that use fuel with 500 ppm of sulphur, so it is relevant to study alternatives to improve combustion. This study evaluated the vehicle performance with a 1998 diesel internal combustion engine, which was adapted to an LPG injection system as input fuel. Torque, power, opacity, particulate matter, and fuel consumption tests were carried out using the IM240 cycle, using different diesel and LPG mixtures. The results show that there is an increase in torque values 22.06 lb.ft and power of 13.47 HP at 300 rpm with a mixture of 53.43% diesel and 46.57% LPG. Opacity had an increase to 82% at the critical point, while there is a decrease in fuel consumption. In addition, as the LPG / Diesel ratio increases, the engine exhibits strong internal explo-sions as a result of delayed ignition, which could cause engine damage. Finally, the results are contrasted with those of other research studies and it is concluded that the incorporation of LPG injection systems in mechanical injection diesel engines, alt-hough it increases the power and torque of the engine, there may be cases where a reduction in the emission of polluting gases or particulate matter is not obtained and normal operation is not guaranteed, especially in mixtures with high LPG proportion. Environmental pollution is a problem of global concern, so the way to reduce pollu-tion and pollutant emissions is constantly being investigated while maintaining or improving parameters such as torque and power. To achieve this goal, mechanical modifications, the vehicle in general, or fuel quality is regulated. Another alternative that has been studied is the mixture of fuels using diesel cycle engines with LPG. In, for example, tests were carried out on fuel-air premixture (PCCI) diesel engines by adding LPG to the combustion mixture, resulting in a reduction in particulate matter emissions and an improvement in auto-ignition resistance. On the other hand, in tests were conducted on injection ignition diesel engines, where power increase, NOx reduc-tion, and CO increase were determined for diesel and LGP fuel mixtures. In LPG and diesel mixtures were tested on an electronically controlled BOSCH VP3 engine up to 75% LPG, which achieves a reduction in fuel consumption of approximately 3.5% by increasing the gas injection angle achieving ignition at a point very close to the opti-mum. Finally, in tests were carried out by adding LPG to the mixture in dual-fuel Diesel CNG engines where the author reports a reduction in power.

Fabian Sarmiento, Andrés Moran, Pablo Ron

Conference Proceedings

A user-centred terminology for existing and upcoming ICT devices, services and applications

Users, unfamiliar with the terminology, technical meaning or intended functionality of mobile ICT (Information and Communications Technology) devices and services may be reluctant to use them and miss out on their potential benefits. This also prevents users from exploiting the true potential of ICT and hinders the uptake and use of services, including those of societal relevance. We present an alternative focusing on improving the overall user experience and accessibility through the provision of recommendations for a harmonized terminology, covering more than 500 basic, commonly used ICT features in 19 European languages including English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Technical Committee Human Factors (TC HF) of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) has initiated this ongoing work, to develop a freely available ETSI document (ETSI Guide EG 203 499 update to be published in the first half of 2022). The poster will present the method used for developing the terminologies and will provide examples of the terminologies to be published in the ETSI Guide.This work is undertaken by ETSI and co-funded by the European Commission (EC) of the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

Martin Boecker, Omar Qawasmeh, Emmanuel Darmois

Conference Proceedings

Noise pattern definition methodology for noise cancellation in coughs signals using an adaptive filter

Cough is the body’s defense mechanism to respond to foreign materials that are accidentally inhaled or caused internally by infections to clean the respiratory system. The cough also contains essential information about the airways of the lungs that helps in the diagnosis of diseases related to the lungs. The cough information contains important information as it is responsible for various respiratory diseases such as bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, etc. Within the study of cough as an audio signal, different acquisition techniques have been created for its analysis. In these audios, there is the possibility of acoustic contamination of cough signals, interferences such as environmental ones, noise when a cough is registered. The sound of teeth, saliva when a person opens and closes their mouth, etc. Acoustic systems for noise cancellation and audio signal enhancement have become a major area of concern in the scientific community because noise drastically reduces the sound quality of cough signals, in addition, that, from a medical point of view, acoustic noise cancellation is vital, as a contaminated cough signal can lead to misdiagnosis by healthcare professionals. Therefore, it is necessary to filter out these noisy signals for proper and accurate analysis of cough signals. In this field, different filtering and noise cancellation techniques have been developed to obtain the cleanest possible cough audio signal. Within the scientific community, but it has been detected that these techniques present a generalization problem because they are configured to eliminate a single type of noise and the same acquisition environment. Therefore, this work proposes a methodology to create a reference signal (noise pattern) that can be used in adaptive filtering to minimize the noise produced in a cough record. This noise pattern is can incorporate information of all types of noises that contaminate a record cough signal. This reference signal has been created using a dataset of cough audio signals. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) has been used as the evaluation metric of the filtering quality. A system able to minimize the noise across all the record cough files using this methodology with an adaptive filtering technique has been created obtaining results closely to 0db, demonstrating the efficiency and generalization of the proposed technique that is part of the preprocessing phase in a system of characterization and classification of cough records.

Santiago Felipe Luna Romero, Christian Salamea Palacios

Conference Proceedings

Design and digital modeling of a blackberry pulp production plant.

Tisaleo canton in Ecuador produces 1893.55 tons of blackberry (rubus glaucus) per year. In this work, the design of a blackberry pulp production plant is presented, using the systematic layout planning methodology, which allows to identify, assess and visualize all the elements involved in the implantation and the relationships between these. Within the methodology, the location is established at the micro-level where the qualitative method by points is used, the material flow analysis is performed through the from/to chart, the triangular diagram is developed, the necessary total area is determined through the Guerchet methodology, the space relationship diagram is carried out, and three alternatives are established and evaluated for the distribution. Based on the ideal alternative, the equipment is designed using SolidWorks software, the plant is modeled in 2D and 3D through the 3ds Max and AutoCAD software creating a 360° render, that evidence the design and distribution of the ideal plant.

Eduardo Teneda Ramos, Lorena Cáceres Miranda, Leonardo Cuenca, José Varela-Aldás

Conference Proceedings

Dynamic Bézier Curves, New Findings on Reparameterization by Arc length

The Bézier curve is a special curve developed in the 1960s, which is not to be generated "directly" with classical mathematics, therefore it is also called "free-form curve". The Bézier mathematics makes it possible to generate a lot of different curves with simple parameterization. Under dynamic aspects of the CNC process, the Bézier curve developed for static application profiles leads to Shape-dependent fluctuations of the cutting speed in orders of magnitude from 1:3 to 1:10 - and above. In Analysis, the problem of leveling different support point distances - which is causal here -, is studied under the term Parameterization by Arc length. For Bézier curves, however, a generally valid solution has not yet been published due to mathematical preconditions. Based on this background, a generally valid approximation algorithm for the Reparameterization of Bézier curves according to Arc length and their Dynamic use on CNC machines, was developed.

Norbert L. Brodtmann, Daniel Schilberg

Conference Proceedings

A System Dynamics Approach on Modeling Homeless Prevention Strategy: A Case Study of LA County

This article presents a system dynamic modeling approach to simulate the effect of a homeless prevention strategy on the homeless population in Los Angeles. Despite the implementation of rehousing strategy suggested by policy makers, the Los Angeles homeless population has increased over time. Traditional statistics analysis is widely used in researching this topic, but using aggregated data fails to provide sufficient explanations on the correlation between the permanent supportive housing and homeless population. Our system dynamics model overcomes this challenge in a unique way using stocks and flows. We model stocks as key factors that have significant impact on homelessness, including prevented homeless population, the population of the homeless who are in the temporary housing programs, and the population of those who are settled in the permanent supportive housing program. Flows provide details on how stocks are related to each other, allowing memories of the history and interconnection in the homeless system. Each stock may affect the other due to time delays and feedback loops through inflows and outflows. To assess the impact of homeless prevention programs, we perform simulation and scenario analysis by adjusting model inputs including ratios for prevented homelessness and the rapid re-housing. The system dynamics model helps unveil the unintended consequence introduced by the Housing-First policy and allows us to evaluate various policies to come up with data-driven recommendations. The simulation results suggest that prevention strategy could lead to a positive impact on reducing the homeless population. Indeed, the use of Housing-First policy along with a preventative program for homelessness could be considered as a more effective strategy for the mitigation of LA homelessness.

Dandan Kowarsch, Zining Yang

Conference Proceedings

Virtuality and Reality: The Digitalization of Societies and Possible Consequences

The spread of the internet - the brightest symbol of digitalization and the introduction of newer and newer digital tools is turning its back on analog development. The internet has developed into a giant digital network, which has caused comprehensive transformations in the work environment, the created products, the interpersonal contacts, and the competitive relations of the organizations. Their double being and positioning - in the realities of the internet and physical reality brought out an abundance of critical scientific topics - the consequences of mixing realities and spaces, the trust in digital information, the directions of digital and analog developments, the educational effects. Some of the defended ideas are based on the results of a sociological survey conducted by the authors, and others on the analytical rethinking of the prevailing theoretical achievements. The thesis is launched that analog and digital developments should be interconnected. Keywords: Virtuality and reality Digital and analog developments Positive and negative effects of digitalization

Dobrinka Peicheva, Valentina Milenkova, Dilyana Keranova, Vladislava Lendzhova, Violeta Nikolova

Conference Proceedings

Predictive Data Analytics in Aviation Maintenance: A Cultural Perspective

The use of predictive data analytics in an aviation maintenance environment has been validated as a proven method for improving operational efficiency, safety, and inventory management. The implementation of predictive maintenance processes, however, remains challenging. While the use of predictive techniques has shown clear benefits, a willingness to adopt such practices must exist at all levels to be successful. This paper is the first in a two-part series aimed at evaluating the current perceptions of aircraft maintainers regarding the use of predictive models in scheduling maintenance and repair operations. The results will allow leaders within this industry to effectively communicate the benefits of data-driven analysis, thus improving confidence in predictive solutions. This study also highlights the challenges related to the incorporation of such approaches, including cultural barriers, and provides recommendations for effective implementation in aviation maintenance organizations.

Bettina Mrusek, John K. Wilson, Jim Solti, Mark Reimann, Ken Witcher

Conference Proceedings

Predicting Takeover Quality in Conditionally Autonomous Vehicles based on Takeover Request Modalities, Driver Physiological State and the Environment

ContextConditionally autonomous vehicles are studied for numerous reasons, due to the dual responsibility in the driving task, switching from the car to the driver depending on the situation. This transition of control, namely the takeover, is usually not a concern when initiated by the driver. However, when the car issues a takeover request (TOR), it does it without consideration for the driver state, or anything else. In such a situation, the driver can be out of the driving loop, unaware of the current environment or focusing on a non-driving-related task (NDRT), impacting the takeover quality.>ObjectiveIn this study, the goal is to find out if a Machine Learning can take advantages of many different factors and how they interact together, to create a model able to predict the takeover quality. Factors highlighted by the literature were considered: the driver physiological state, the external environment, the driver current activity and the modality of the TOR. Some studies tried to predict takeover quality, but they usually study the TOR modality impact, the NDRT or the driver state. In this paper, we attempt to study the bigger picture and grasps the impact of the interaction between those multiple factors. >Methodology>>Experiment15 drivers’ physiological signals (EDA, ECG and respiration) were recorded during a 50 minutes driving session on a fixed-base driving simulator. They encountered 9 takeover situations each, caused by a stationary obstacle appearing on a road with a time-to-collision of around 7 seconds. Physiological data were processed on the last 90 seconds before each TOR. The possible TOR modalities were combinations of visual (icon on the dashboard), auditory (short beep sound) and haptic (vibrating seat). Combinations tested were visual-haptic, visual-auditory and visual-auditory-haptic. The drivers had 3 task for each third of the driving session: Visual n-back task, auditory n-back task or monitoring the car (no task).Half the participants (8) had an adverse weather during the driving session, with low luminosity and heavy rain, while the other half (7) had a sunny weather. Reaction time between the TOR and the takeover, and the maximum steering wheel angle attained during the takeover process were recorded as takeover quality metrics. >>Machine LearningTakeover quality metrics were combined to create a unique label to predict. State-of-the-art Feature Selection techniques were applied to keep only to more relevant features, and after outliers suppressions and data processing, 80 takeovers were kept for the Machine Learning models training. Data Augmentation methods, such as SMOGN and Random Noise were implemented and tested to boost the training dataset. KNeighbors Regressor, Support Vector Regressor (SVR), Random Forest Regressors (RFR) and Neural Networks (NN) were trained using a grid search approach and cross validation. Evaluation was done using MSE, MAE and R2.>ResultsThe NN gave the best results, with a MSE of 0.0538, a R2 of 0.1040 and a MAE of 0.1614. The results are similar to the most recent literature. Most important physiological features included indicators of the Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, Heart Rate Variability and Skin Conductance Response

Emmanuel De Salis, Quentin Meteier, Marine Capallera, Colin Pelletier, Leonardo Angelini, Omar Abou Khaled, Elena Mugellini, Marino Widmer, Stefano Carrino

Conference Proceedings

Data-based Usage Analysis of Shared e-scooters in the Context of Public Transport

Shared e-scooters could improve the sustainability of traffic by being an incentive to switch to public transportation and simultaneously being a potential first- and last-mile-solution. Currently, it is not clear whether e-scooter sharing is a positive addition or an additional burden for urban traffic. This work evaluates the usage of shared e-scooters and its impacts on public transport, based on movement data of e-scooters distributed in the German city of Karlsruhe. A central research question answered in this work is whether shared e-scooters contribute to increasing the attractiveness of public transport or whether they substitute it. Since this question has hardly been investigated so far with the help of mobility data, this work addresses a research gap.Therefore, a concept is presented that can be used to perform a usage analysis of shared e-scooters. In particular, the question will be addressed to what extent shared e-scooters are used for the first- or last-mile and how often they substitute public transport. Furthermore, it will be assessed how suitable our approach is to investigate the mentioned questions.To answer the research questions, we present methods with which the raw e-scooter data, collected via the publicly available APIs, is processed, and the investigation is carried out. In a first step, the shared e-scooter data is processed as plausible paths with the help of our customized python analysis tools. The intermediate result should be e-scooter paths that can be interpreted as trips made by users. Therefore, we applied a similar approach as in comparable studies [1-3].The data basis is validated by calculating key figures and performing a temporal-spatial usage analysis. Through a comparison with the results of similar studies [1-3] it can be assessed to what extent the data is representative and whether special features can be found in the study area. In addition, external influences such as weather conditions or covid-19-related restrictions that may have acted during the study period were considered.The e-scooter trips are then categorized to assess potential use in the context of public transport use. For this categorization, the shared e-scooter trips are divided based on their proximity to public transport stops into four categories: access, departure, substitution, and other trips. An access trip is defined as a potential first-mile trip, departure trips are potential last-mile trips and substitution trips are considered as potential public transport substitutions. More than a third of the studied shared e-scooter trips could have potentially been made using public transportation. In the full paper, the results of our study are interpreted, and the used approaches are evaluated. The focus is on estimating, how many of the access and departure trips are actual first and last mile trips. It could be estimated that, with a share of about 18%, shared e-scooters are used for the first- and last-mile, about as often as surveys in France (15%) and Portland (12%) show [4]. Finally, supplemented by public transport passenger data, we investigate whether statistical correlations between shared e-scooter and public transport use can be proven.References:[1] McKenzie, Grant (2019): Spatiotemporal comparative analysis of scooter-share and bike-share usage patterns in Washington, D.C. Journal of Transport Geography. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333543134_Spatiotemporal_comparative_analysis_of_scooter-share_and_bike-share_usage_patterns_in_Washington_DC[2]Reck, Daniel; Haitao, He; Guidon, Sergio; Axhausena, Kay W. (2021): Explaining shared micromobility usage, competition and mode choice by modelling empirical data from Zurich, Switzerland. Volume 124. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0968090X20308445, [3] Caspi, O.; Smart, M.; Noland, R. (2020): Spatial associations of dockless shared e-scooter usage. Volume 86. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1361920920305836[4] Gubman, Joanna; Jung, Alexander; Kiel, Thomas; Strehmann, Jan (2019): Shared E-Scooters: Paving the Road Ahead, Policy Recommendations for Local Government. Berlin: Agora Verkehrswende.

Rafael Oehme, Waldemar Titov, Konstantin Krauss, Till Gnann, Thomas Schlegel

Conference Proceedings

Automation of the wastewater reception process for fish protein production

The food industry generates a high impact on the environment due to the waste generated in the production process and the different products that go on the market. A large part of them is used in landfills or as agricultural fertilizer, but they are not efficiently used. Each sector generates different percentages of waste depending on what is manufactured. One of the sectors that has grown the most is aquaculture and fishing, generating more and more waste which negatively impacts the environment. Ecuador, due to its oceanographic location is one of the main exporters of fishery products in Latin America, highlighting tuna fishing. The waste generated in this sector can be utilized to improve the functional properties of food providing with antioxidants. Reusing that waste will give rise to cheaper products with high nutritional values. Some of the subproducts that can be obtained are flour, protein, oil, hydrolysates, concentrates, animal feed, among others. Industries that produce fish protein are globally growing. This product is used as animal feed in all countries. Among the main producers of fish protein are Peru and Chile. In Ecuador, only one company is manufacturer. This company was born because of a need for environmental remediation of the tuna sector, currently reaching a production of 2400TM / year, with working long hours and double shifts. This company seeks to improve the current production process, incorporating an automatic control system in the processing of raw materials. The production of fish protein consists of five main stages: reception, centrifuge, filtration, evaporation, and drying. For the final product elaboration, wastewater from the manufacture of canned tuna is used, which is the main raw material. The reception stage is one of the most delicate parts of the process since the raw material has a time of use of up to 36 hours. After this time, the product cannot be used. This phase requires improvements since it has an operational type level which is the lowest level of the automation pyramid. This stage is limited to basic mechanical level controls. At the reception, the raw material must pass through a separator of suspended solids until the filtration process using membranes for the water treatment where dissolved solids are extracted. Through a change of pressures, the passage of water is forced through the membranes. Subsequently, the evaporation and drying phases take place to obtain the final product. In the present research, an automatic control system is designed to monitor the time, temperature, and volumes in the reception stage. It will generate a controlled and constant shipment of raw material complying with the installed capacity of 2400 tons of finished product per year. This amount is obtained with no extra days of the staff, optimizing resources. The proposed automatic process helps to maintain a constant pumping system. Finally, 95% of efficiency will be obtained in the process, decreasing the production time from 10.15 hours to 9.30 hours.

Blanca Topon-Visarrea, Andrés Moran, Mauricio Valle

Conference Proceedings

Cognitive Mimetics for Designing Intelligent Industrial Systems: Case Next-Generation Diary

A key problem with intelligent industrial processes is that the relevant systems, such as digital twins or cyber–physical systems, require knowledge to perform their operations. Currently, much of that knowledge is in the human domain; it is largely tacit and shared informally. Here, we sketch out an idea for an intelligent industrial diary, building on the concepts of cognitive mimetics and human digital twins and focusing on ontology-related aspects of the system. We ask how human knowledge and knowledge of humans can be captured and operationalized to provide the necessary currency and basis for intelligent technology and its design. Our idea is derived from empirical research on the concept of a “next-generation diary” for pulp mills. The broader idea is that intelligent industrial diaries could become a key focal point for accumulating the knowledge needed for intelligent technology, thereby embodying the main ideas in cognitive mimetics.

Antero Karvonen, Olli Kuusisto, Pertti Saariluoma

Conference Proceedings

Implementation of a Low-Cost Electroencephalography System for the Analysis of Neurological Biosignals for Neuropsychological Studies

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) have developed applications to identify different degrees of cortical activation in different circumstances in humans. This study implemented a BCI system for the analysis of neurological biosignals for studies in Neuropsychology. The acquired information used OpenBCI hardware elements and software to visualize in real time the brain electrical activity set in voltage and frequency parameters. The web application developed allowed visual monitoring of the brain electrical activity of each electrode, the different frequency bands, the averages between cerebral hemispheres and the activation of a servomotor. The distribution of the channels made it possible to obtain the Theta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma brain rhythms in alert and relaxed states with eyes open as well as closed.

David Bermeo, Daniel Urgilés, Génesis Vásquez, Diego Almeida- Galárraga, Omar Alvarado Cando

Conference Proceedings

Credit classification using regulation techniques on the Credit German database

The development of microfinance, as well as microcredit, has generated greater competition among financial institutions to attract customers in this business segment. For this reason, the development of credit scoring models is highly required by these financial institutions. In this sense, to ensure that no overfitting is generated in the use of prediction techniques and in case of difficulty with collinearity, it will not be possible to obtain reliable estimates and predictions through common statistical techniques such as least squares; for this reason, it is significant and necessary to apply regularized regression methods such as Ridge, Lasso and Elastic Net. The present research determined the optimal credit scoring model for the Credit German database using the Ridge, Lasso, and Elastic Net regulation techniques. This dataset was initially analyzed with the Logit model, finding that this model has an accuracy of 37.2%; on the other hand, the Lasso model presented an accuracy of 76.7%, the Ridge model of 75.6%, and the Elastic Net model of 69.2%. Finally, the Lasso model evidenced the best prediction of the credit rating of Credit German future clients, with an accuracy in the training data of 82.9% and for the test data of 76.7%, being superior to the proposed models.

Sebastian Sosa, Priscila Rivera, Cristhian Nicolas Aldana Yarleque, Yesenia Saavedra Navarro, Luis Ramón Trelles Pozo, Gustavo Mendoza

Conference Proceedings

Cognitive Mapping of Strategic Development in the Agricultural Sector

Planning of agricultural company strategic development requires considering the influence of qualitative factors of a different nature. The problem of finding possible scenarios, identifying the causes of problematic situations and ways of their solution requires formalizing the expert knowledge, which is expressed by qualitative assessments and concepts. Formalization of semi structured scenarios of a company’s strategic development based on expert knowledge is possible using cognitive maps. The article reviews applications of cognitive mapping for decision making in the agricultural sector. The basic qualitative factors influencing strategic development of agricultural company are revealed. The cognitive map describing strategic development of an agricultural company is presented.The rapid development of information technologies and digitalization poses new challenges for agricultural enterprises in Russia. Agricultural enterprises face the following tasks: increasing the export of agricultural products, creating end-to-end chains from the producer to the end consumer, based on digital technologies such as blockchain, the Internet of Things and the use of Big Data, increasing labor productivity and maximizing profits. It is expected that digitalization in agriculture will lead to the creation of optimal production and logistics chains that will unite retail and wholesale trading companies, agricultural producers, and their suppliers into a single structure with adaptive management. The digital transformation of agriculture will also create the necessary conditions for private investment in the development of platforms and applications for agricultural producers, and the activation of agricultural consulting. The implementation of Big Data analytical platforms for all verticals of the agro-industrial complex will allow receiving and processing huge amounts of information, as well as predicting crop yields and climate risks more effectively. Efficiency growth is expected from the implementation of digital technologies directly into production: robotics, the purchase of ‘smart equipment’, satellites and drones, automated irrigation systems and greenhouses. The distribution process will completely change due to the digitalization of sales, full traceability of the product path from the manufacturer to consumers based on blockchain and electronic exchanges for the sale of agricultural products. However, there are many obstacles on the way to digitalization. For instance, the level of development of digital skills of the Russian Federation population is still much lower than in developed countries. Building a long-term strategy of development of an agricultural company under these conditions requires considering quantitative, structural, stochastic factors, as well as qualitative, factors of various nature. Moreover, you need to consider the interaction of factors and analyze the possible development of the situation in dynamics. The appropriate method for solving this task is cognitive mapping. In this research we offer an approach to strategic planning based on fuzzy cognitive mapping and present the cognitive map of strategic development of an agricultural company that has a network of greenhouse complexes in Russia.

Yulia Morozova

Conference Proceedings

Production of educational videogame from the design document

This work aims to promote environmental awareness in children, as a philosophy of life, to promote a culture of care for the ecosystem in their family and social environment. From the field of video games, we wanted to achieve the proposed objective, for this we started from the design document, based on Rogers' model. Prototypes were developed, levels were designed, resources were placed in the scenario, physics and mechanics were tested. The agile Scrum methodology and the Unity video game engine with C# scripts were considered for the development. The video game consists of a superhero of nature with three levels, was generated in its initial phase to be tested with the target audience. The results obtained from a control group of children from 7 to 10 years old are presented. A user experience evaluation method was applied by inspection to obtain results related to usability heuristics, Gestalt principles, interactions, and perception of aesthetics.

Miguel Cobos, Daniel Ripalda

Conference Proceedings

Occupational Safety and Health Affected by Climate Change: Future Challenges and Research Agenda

The global Vision Zero approach aims to reduce work-related injuries, dis-eases, and deaths as much as possible. Proactive planning of work and the working environment as well as early identification of emerging risks and workload factors will promote the occupational safety and health (OSH) of employees. In the future, climate change may both directly and indirectly in-fluence OSH. This study investigates the OSH effects that have been identi-fied in interdisciplinary studies related to climate change. Moreover, it exam-ines various ways of adjusting to climate change. The methods consist of a literature review and a qualitative content analysis of documents. This inter-disciplinary study expands on the current knowledge of future challenges concerning OSH with respect to climate change. Practical means of adapting to climate change have rarely been suggested at the organizational level. Fu-ture studies should explore approaches to adapting to climate change and de-velop related practices.

Sari Tappura, Maria Linsholm

Conference Proceedings

Pleasure and Suffering at Work in the Technical Act: A Case Study From a Garment Factory in a Context of Technological Transformation

Technological transformation is at the center of changes that affect the current forms of work organization in different sectors of activity [1]. However, its introduction is never standard. On the contrary, it depends on the dynamics of each sector, the company's history, and its territory. In contrast to a deterministic view that assumes a direct relationship between technology and productivity, and an indirect one when it comes to guaranteeing collective and individual well-being, the analysis conducted in the domain of work psychology and activity ergonomics has uncovered other risks, such as work intensification [2], and emerging impacts on health [3,4].The difference between technique and technology gains relevance in this perspective [5]. Commonly used in an undifferentiated way, these constructs are related to different operating modes. Working with technology involves the mobilization of technical skills, whereas technique implies the incorporation of experience, throughout a long learning process of managing work variability. The relationship with a technological artefact does not always allow work to be carried out in a way workers can recognize themselves. That is, when the new technical practices are not consistent with the workers’ know-how developed so far. This is one of the sources of suffering at work, but this also happens when the technical act is not recognized [6].Through a case study in the textile sector, the pleasure/suffering dynamic that permeates the human-machine relationship was explored based on the construction of mediators, allowing the access to workers' viewpoints on what they live at work.The sample consists of ten female operators from a garment factory in Portugal. A work analysis was developed, including observations, self-confrontation interviews supported with video recordings, and both semi-structured individual and collective interviews. For coding and thematic data analysis NVivo 12 software was used. Additionally, observational data was treated using Actograph® software. From the interviews, four main themes emerged: “Understanding the machine”, “A job well-done”, “Relationship with others”; and “Risks and impacts on health”. The relationship with the machine is, simultaneously, a protective factor (e.g., when this has an impact on the perception of a job well-done) and a source of suffering (e.g., when the worker has to perform the activity in a similar machine, which is not her “own”).From the observations, two contrasting situations are highlighted: the first concerns the work with automatic sewing, and the second, with a traditional sewing machine. These are illustrative examples of situations that involve the interaction with technology, in the first case, and a technical act, in the second one, which is only possible by the fact that this work is performed by experienced seamstresses. In a work context characterized by high productivity and quality demands, one of the health protective factors comes from the seamstresses’ operational leeway to manage the way they perform their work, and thus being recognized by others (colleagues and supervisors).In a context of technological transformation, the analysis of the human-machine relationship cannot be understood from an approach centered exclusively on technology’s potential. This relationship is built on a social dynamic and in the face of work organization configurations, which protects or weakens the preservation of health. Further investigation on this is being done as the team is developing an ecological momentary assessment device for self-report of well-being dimensions [7]. This way technology could constitute a mediator in the access to them.References[1] Eurofound (2018). Automation, digitisation and platforms: implications for work and employment. Publications Office of the European Union.[2] Cunha, L., Barros, C., Baylina, P., & Silva, D. (2021). Work intensification in road transport industry: an approach to new working scenarios with automated vehicles. Work: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation, 69(3), 847-857.[3] Barcellini, F. (2019). Industrie du futur: quelle place pour le travail et ses transformations. In E. Bourdu, M. Lallement, P. Veltz, & T. Weil (Dirs.), Le Travail en mouvement (pp. 136-147). Presses des Mines.[4] Bobillier Chaumon, M-E., & Clot, Y. (2016). Clinique de l’usage: Les artefacts technologiques comme développement de l’activité. Activites, 13.[5] Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1973). Évolution et techniques. Milieu et techniques. Albin Michel.[6] Dejours, C. (2006). O fator humano. Fundação Getulio Vargas.[7] Barros, A., Moutinho, R., Correia, C., Lemos, G., Resende, C., Ricaldoni, F., Cunha, L., Silva, D., Maggioli, S., Brito, S. (under review). Design and Evaluation of a Portable Device for Ecological Momentary Assessment with Workers in a Garment Factory. Paper to be presented on ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, New Orleans.

Liliana Cunha, Daniel Silva, Sarah Maggioli, Ana Correia De Barros, Catarina Correia, Fernando Ricaldoni, Susana Amorim Brito

Conference Proceedings

An overview of the development of cloud-based CAE software in the context of industrial Internet

Industrial Internet is a new industrial pattern developed by the integration of the new round of information technology revolution and traditional industrial manufacturing system. And industrial software is the software basis for modern industrial functioning, along with the development of the industrial Internet, industrial software also has a new product form, based on the cloud computing platform of various types of industrial software began to rapidly appear. This paper analyzes the main functions and interaction methods of several existing mature cloud-based CAE software in current, and proposes the basic product features and software forms of current cloud-based CAE. It is a guideline for more complete and mature cloud-based CAE software in the future.

Shichao Meng

Conference Proceedings

Parallelising 2D-CNNs and transformers: A Cognitive-based approach for Automatic Recognition of Learners’ English Proficiency

Learning English as a foreign language requires an extensiveuse of cognitive capacity, memory, and motor skills in order to orallyexpress one’s thoughts in a clear manner. Current speech recognition in-telligence focuses on recognising learners’ oral proficiency from fluency,prosody, pronunciation, and grammar’s perspectives. However, the ca-pacity of clearly and naturally expressing an idea is a high level cognitivebehaviour which can hardly be represented by these detailed and segmen-tal dimensions, which indeed do not fulfil English learners and teachersrequirements. This work aims to utilise the state-of-the-art deep learningtechniques to recognise English speaking proficiency at a cognitive level,i. e., a learner’s ability to clearly organise their own thoughts when ex-pressing an idea in English as a foreign language. For this, we collectedthe “Oral English for Japanese Learners” Dataset (OEJL-DB), a corpusof recordings by 82 students of a Japanese high school expressing theirideas in English towards 5 different topics. Annotations concerning theclarity of learners’ thoughts are given by 5 English teachers according to2 classes: clear and unclear. In total, the dataset includes 7.6 hours ofaudio data with an average length for each oral English presentation of66 seconds. As initial cognitive-based method to identify learners’ speak-ing proficiency, we propose an architecture based on the paralelizationof CNNs and Transformers. With the strengthening of the CNNs in spa-tial feature representation and the Transformer in sequence encoding,we achieve a 89.4 % accuracy and 87.6 % Unweighted Average Recall(UAR), results which outperform those from the ResNet architectures(89.2 % accuracy and 86.3 % UAR). Our promising outcomes reveal thatspeech intelligence can be efficiently applied to “grasp” high level cog-nitive behaviours, a new area of research which seems to have a greatpotential for further investigation.

Meishu Song, Emilia Parada-Cabaleiro, Zijiang Yang, Xin Jing, Kazumasa Togami, Kun Qian, Björn Schuller, Yamamoto Yoshiharu

Conference Proceedings

An exploration on stimulating game developers' engagement using sandbox game development environment in higher education design courses

The motivation to stimulate college students to learn and participate in game development courses can be found from the following facts: learning itself is not always motivated. This paper presents a user experience method of creating game courses on sandbox game development platform. The core idea is that by making college students feel involved in creating games, they can stimulate their interest in game development. It is assumed that this method can improve college students' participation in game development and promote their understanding of learning perception. In order to test this hypothesis, this paper describes the experience of 71 college students' game development courses with ages between 19 and 21 years old. The results show that college student's satisfaction is significantly improved in this process. It can be concluded that the sandbox game development platform has the interest and motivation to stimulate the participation of college students or game developers.

Tengfei Xian

Conference Proceedings

Quantum Based Brain-Computer Interface Performance Analysis for Next-Generation Metaverse

The study discussed observations from 8-electrode brain-control interface (BCI) recordings and investigated its connectomic structure. The subject repeatedly controlled the operating system by concentrating creatively and producing recordable signals. The research problem was to understand recorded psychometric data and prove its validity. Sample observational size (n = 6’825) was selected using clustering sampling from successfully recorded stimulations (N >= 200’000) in a Virtual Reality (VR) development environment. The empirical Structural Equation Model (SEM) was modeled. Through SEM, rotated data was simplified with Factor Analysis (FA). Hypothesis testing reveals distinctions and correlation predictions in non-invasively placed electrodes on the cerebral hemisphere. In conclusion, the β-values of electrodes placed to the right instead predict adverse effects to the left electrodes during processing visual sensory inputs.

Janne Heilala

Conference Proceedings

Pleasurable emotions of product design

improving product attractiveness and usability has become a new direction of product design. In the past, the functional aesthetics pursued in product design was gradually replaced by emotional experience. The new usability is transformed into positive emotional needs. As an emotion type with research value in positive emotion, pleasant emotion has gradually become a new usability issue in emotional design. Therefore, the construction of product form pleasant emotion evaluation system helps designers to develop products that meet market orientation according to the combination of aesthetic experience and pleasant design evaluation system. Under the guidance of emotional design theory, through the systematic research of pleasure design, combined with aesthetic pleasure criteria and aesthetic principles, this study constructs a product pleasure evaluation system. A new research method and systematic evaluation scheme are proposed for the future product design research in the context of pleasant emotion.

Xinying Wu, Ming-Gang Yang, Zishun Su

Conference Proceedings

From Emotion to Geometry: The Analysis of Tone in Written Communication as a Computational Design Tool

This paper explores the relationship between geometry and emotion through the use of language analysis. We describe a novel computational design approach and the implementation of a software prototype that uses sentiment analysis in written communication to automatically generate parametric variations of a particular design. Our system provides a hybrid-centered approach to design that transforms the qualitative nature of tone and emotion in text into quantitative design parameters that can be manipulated in a 3D modeling software, thus facilitating more creative conversations between the designer and the computer. Our exploration is a first step toward the evolution of de-sign tools into intuitive artificial cognitive systems that can process ideas and semantic constructs and transform them into concrete geometric forms.

Jorge Camba, Manuel Contero, David Pérez-López

Conference Proceedings

Intelligent RAN Slicing Orchestration Framework For Healthcare Application in 5G

With the increase in the number of internet-connected devices, there is a need to improve reliability, lower latency, higher capacity, more security, and high-speed connectivity. Every application has its performance metrics in terms of QoS parameters. Network slicing enables slicing an extensive broadband network into multiple virtual networks to serve applications more cost-efficiently. With the advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), the performance of network decision-making accelerates. In this paper, we propose a dynamic RAN slicing framework for healthcare applications and develop a static Radio Access network slice simulation model by implementing KNN to predict the class. The deep slice data set from the public domain was leveraged to train the model and predict appropriate slice service types for healthcare applications.

Srikanth Sailada, Anil Gupta, Suresh V, Vineeth Aitipamula

Conference Proceedings

Design of Smart Curtain Based on Affordance

Nowadays, product design emphasizes to start from user experience, excavate us-er's own behavior characteristics, realize self-perception of people and environment, so as to better show the use experience of products. In this paper, based on the theory of affordance and behavior logic as the clue, through the analysis of the affordance matrix of home smart curtain, the possible affordance relationship be-tween components and people is extracted. Based on this, the whole cycle process of intelligent curtain is explored, and many problems of curtain in structure longi-tudinal and control panel are analyzed. Based on the design method, the hierarchical relationship and gap in the behavioral logic are reflected, and a behavior design method based on affordance is proposed, which is to identify the environment, improve the use process, find common characteristics, and enhance the hierarchical relationship of the perception of affordance. Through affordance, it is possible to form a good interaction relationship based on human-thing-environment and promote the iteration of product design.

Mi Tian, Jie Zhang, Ming Li, Xiaori Dong

Conference Proceedings

Comparison of Arima and Holt-Winters forecasting models for time series of cereal production in Peru

Agricultural commodities present remarkable volatility in their production levels, which severely affects farmers. The variational dynamics in the prices of the inputs used and the constant variations in weather conditions have a significant influence on the cereal production chain in Peru; therefore, compared to the ARIMA model, the Additive Holt-Winters forecasting model presented a better fit according to the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), forecasting the production of Oryza sativa, Zea mays L. var. Indurata and Amaranthus caudatus; however, due to the high seasonality, volatility of production, and the greater amount of outliers due to production in certain periods and geographical areas, the Holt-Winters Multiplicative model predicted the national production of Zea mays L. ssp amiláceo and Chenopodium quinoa, in Peru in the period 2000-2021.

Humberto Saul Sernaque Herrera, Moly Dayana Meca Barreto, Eduardo Daniel Zapata Tavara, Berenise Nicol Marchan Domador, Junior Eduardo Medina Peña, Denis Alexis Nole Villalobos, Cristhian Nicolas Aldana Yarleque, Yesenia Saavedra Navarro, Luis Ramón Trelles Pozo, Nelson Chuquihuanca Yacsahuanca, Gustavo Mendoza

Conference Proceedings

Detection of Outliers in The Peruvian Fruit Production Time Series Using Arima Models

The present applied, non-experimental, descriptive and prognostic research; was aimed at detecting outliers in the agricultural production of Mangifera indica (mango), Persea americana (avocado) and Citrus x aurantifolia (lemon) at the national level, was performed by applying an ARIMA Model. To fulfill it purposes, documentary analysis was used at the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (In Spanish, INEI). The study sample consisted of the mango, avocado and lemon production indices 2000-2020. As a result, the models were obtained arima mango (1,0,0) (2,1,2) (AIC=5448.99, BIC=5473.35 and RMSE=19067.93), arima avocado (0,1,3) (2,1,0) (AIC=4687.05, BIC=4707.91 and RMSE=4114.35) and arima lemon (1,0,1) (0,1,1) (AIC=4484.36, BIC=4501.76 and RMSE=2551.96) with a 12 months period, the diagram of boxes and whiskers was also made with which it was identified that atypical data (Outliers) abound in the periods of greatest production.

Manuel Chávez, Israel Chavez, Eduardo Torres, Sandro Atoche, Stefano Palacios, Luis Ramón Trelles Pozo, Yesenia Saavedra Navarro, Cristhian Nicolas Aldana Yarleque, Gustavo Mendoza, Nelson Chuquihuanca Yacsahuanca

Conference Proceedings

AI-based component management system for structured content creation, annotation, and publication

The ever-mutable regulations and laws, over-information, and the exponential change of digital technologies require large complex entities, companies, and public administrations to continually adapt their production and information processes. Indeed, they increasingly need to update and to inform employees and users in an immediate, efficient, and timely manner (Bostrom 2006; Harari 2018; Yaneer Bar-Yam 2004). To this end, following the principles of human centered design (Norman and Draper 1986), authors should decline information according to the user profile and create different versions of the same content.However, content management systems (CMS) that support the vast majority of large complex websites (Barker 2016), flatten text (often in multiple languages), regulations, images, videos and quantitative variables (dates, numerical parameters, geographic location) in a linear document. The content is managed in a digital format that loses all structure, prevents reuse, and takes no advantage of the originally modular nature of the information. This causes an uncontrollable growth of touch points to be maintained and updated, and a fragmentation of information sources inevitably doomed to abandonment and inconsistency.Challenges grow exponentially with the organization scale and with information complexity: using CMS and traditional web tools only, the most likely result is a corpus so intricate, specialized and self-contradictory as to be not only ineffective, but even harmful (Vian 2020). This catastrophic and widespread state is caused by the degree of information complexity, which has vastly exceeded the capability of traditional CMSs.In this paper we describe the regulatory, technological and economic requirements and the system of software, organizational and cultural solutions that emerged at the University of Genoa (UniGe) as a result of the successful development of a content service platform (CSP), powered by intelligent tools and aimed at addressing the aforementioned issues.We have designed and deployed a CSP that leverages the granularity of information to transform it into structured and reusable data following a single-sourcing and component content management paradigm (Andersen and Batova 2015). The CSP manages and annotates multimedia content, translates text, and catalogues images and videos based on their semantic content using state-of-the-art machine learning methods. The integration of human processes and intelligent tools facilitates the decoupling of information and technology choices, and triggers a content structuring process that better serves current user’s needs and prepares UniGe knowledge base for future advances in the semantic web (Berners-Lee, Hendler, and Lassila 2001).The system we present is part of the UniGe CSP and is being used to publish notices, news and events on about 200 websites about education and research, including the main website. In particular the CSP: manages and publishes structured and granular content for multiple channels, user profiles and devices is integrated with services from the Google Cloud AI ecosystem for image recognition and automatic text translation features a user-friendly graphical interface that simplifies the editorial process is provided with digital rights tools, to assign different roles within the editorial staff and to enable editors on specific profiles or touchpoints serves all output data in machine readable formats for reuse in other applications.In spite of strong internal resistance, the institution was highly committed to the success of the project, which span almost seven years and called for the involvement of about 20 full-time equivalents of an interdisciplinary, dedicated and highly skilled team. The adoption of the system in UniGe involved the entire course of business processes, entailed profound technological and cultural transformations and received strong appreciation and support. On one hand, its advent has highlighted the pressing needs for digital transformation in a typical large Italian public organization, and the excellent and tangible results obtained with a strategy relying on the integration of human processes and intelligent systems. On the other hand, the fragile political conditions necessary for such integration signal that the collective acceptance and cultural transformation required by digital technology is at least as important as the technological framework.Our findings strongly support hybrid systems, where intelligent methods sustain, enhance and complement the capabilities of humans, giving them control over the process and its final outcome and a clear picture of the benefits achieved. In this intermediate phase of building a hybrid human-AI, human acceptance is indeed a necessary condition for the success of digital transformation processes (Chen et al. 2020).

Annalisa Barla, Marina Cuneo, Simone Roberto Nunzi, Giorgia Paniati, Andrea Vian

Conference Proceedings

Instinct-Driven Engineering

Current Information engineering is focused on artificial world in engineering, in information processing, etc. But as the Real World is getting more and more complicated and complex, and the environments and situations come to change frequently, extensively and in an unpredictable manner, it becomes increasingly difficult to cope with such problems of large dimensions. As the curse of dimension tells us if the number f dimensions become too large, we cannot process the problem mathematically. But we can manage to cope with such changing Real World, although it becomes more and more difficult. Why can we manage to cope with such drastically changin Real World? It is because our instinct can process a tremendously large amount of data. So, instead to sticking to processing everything mathematically, we should think to use our instinct, when it becomes difficult to process mathematically. But even when we use instinct, it becomes more and more difficult to cope with the changes of the Real World. So, this paper proposes to develop a tool to support instinct to reduce its burden. Mahalanobis Distance-Pattern (MDP) approach is proposed as a tool in that direction. MDP is based on ordinal approach based Mahalanobis Distance and combine it with pattern. Thus, it enables instinct to make the most of qualitative evaluation, while the current engineering is primarily based on cardinal approach and only provide quantitative evaluation.

Shuichi Fukuda

Conference Proceedings

A CAD toolset for modeling and synthesis of technosphere safety systems using blockchain technology

How to solve the problem of timely prevention of technological disasters, in example?My solution: An integrated system of technosphere security with the registration of events in theblockchain.Data from vibration sensors, deformation sensors, position and displacement sensors relative to afixed reference point (as well as humidity, gas, fire and burglar alarm sensors, etc.) mustconstantly fall into the public blockchain. Society should always be aware of the status ofsignificant objects, that is, 24/7.The maximum permissible values of the readings of all systems must also be known and remainunchanged, so that it is possible to make decentralized conclusions about the condition ofstructures, the operation of which is associated with risks in the field of technosphere and othersafety.Accordingly, events should be recorded and short videos should also be recorded, the recordingof which is carried out by the operation of motion sensors that record any environmental changenear the protected object.Verification and certification data of measuring instruments should also be included in theblockchain as separate transactions.The information system based on the blockchain, where monitoring data will be delivered in atimely manner, will not only prevent technogenic disasters, it will determine the responsibilitiesof officials and prevent the implementation of corruption scenarios.Earlier in my publications I already suggested using blockchain to register events of anintegrated system of environmental safety and campaigning.The design of integrated technosphere security system with event logging based on the blockchain is a complex task. And then a special CAD/CAE will come to the rescue. Specifically, a suite of CAD tools for modeling and synthesizing a recycling infrastructure for waste management systems and solutions development in order to prevent the global waste catastrophe.Here I propose the concept of such a computer-aided design toolset.

Georgii Kupriianov, Remir Solnitsev

Conference Proceedings

Determinants of renewable and non-renewable energy demand and new trends in Peru

Today, sustainable economic development is essential for a country, so it is necessary to act in the planning and efficient use of our resources and to achieve clean and renewable energy. The determinants of renewable and non-renewable energy demand are mainly based on economic growth, financial development and trade. Likewise, the impact of economic growth on energy demand considers that higher energy consumption leads to economic growth. In Peru, promoting energy planning and efficiency actions, as well as the generation and use of renewable energies for economic and energy development to be sustainable in the country. Therefore, this research analyzes the effect of tariffs, GDP and population on the demand for renewable and non-renewable energy in the period 2013 to 2020.

Angie Gianella Valdiviezo Curipuma, Sarai Elizabeth Leon Vera, Santos Ebert Yanayaco Culquicondor, Yesenia Saavedra Navarro, Cristhian Nicolas Aldana Yarleque, Luis Ramón Trelles Pozo, Nelson Chuquihuanca Yacsahuanca, Gustavo Mendoza

Conference Proceedings

Gait Analysis for Rehabilitation using Rigid and Flexible Exoskeletons

Diseases of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems have afflicted humans since recorded history. Similarly, injuries and related trauma of one form or another have impaired human ambulation or even made it impossible to stand, walk, run or even to sit or squat. Stretchers, crutches, wheelchairs, and exoskeletons have been developed to help improve the mobility of these disabled individuals, but often require assistance from others to some degree, limiting patient autonomy. To ascertain which assistive devices might be better suited to a particular patient with an ambulation disability or weakness, the healthcare providers must perform an assessment of the individual’s gait to first under-stand the underlying symptomatic deficits, diseases, or injuries. This paper reviews how exoskeletons can with respect to the gait cycle assist the weak and elderly as well as patients with specific diseases or injuries that impact ambulation.

Robert Dizor, S M Mizanoor Rahman, Anil Raj

Conference Proceedings

Exoskeleton Design Considerations based on the Lower Extremity Musculoskeletal Anatomy

This paper focuses on understanding the musculoskeletal anatomy of the lower extremities and how the joint movement is controlled by the muscles. The lower extremity has been subdivided into three major sections: the hip joint, the knee joint, and the ankle joint. For each of these joints, attention is given to which muscles control the motion or degrees of freedom with respect to these joints. The muscles are grouped by their major motion like flexion or extension and additional detail is provide with respect to secondary and more complex motion. Drawings were made showing the location of the major flexors and extensors for the three major joints. Furthermore, the muscles were grouped within tables by their motion and major innervations. This information is based on the medical anatomical and physiology texts included within the references. These drawings and tables can be helpful for quick reference and understanding the motion for each of the lower extremity joints, thus improving surface EMG sensor placement and positioning when designing lower limb prosthetics or exoskeletons.

Robert Dizor, S M Mizanoor Rahman, Anil Raj

Conference Proceedings

Smart Cities Strategies in Developing Countries: The Case of Lusail City, Qatar

The last decade has witnessed a rapid technological development that contributed to improving the quality of life in many aspects. As new technologies come to life, more innovations evolve. Many of these innovations have been effectively translated into large-scale applications, creating an initiative called “Smart Cities”, which aims to make cities more sustainable and reliable to adapt to the increasing needs and challenges associated with the growing urbanization. Some developing countries have adopted these “Smart Cities” initiatives to serve their strategic development visions. Qatar, for example, is a developing country in the Middle East with a comprehensive nation-al vision by 2030 that defines the framework in which national strategies and implementation plans can be developed to make Qatar an advanced society capable of sustaining its development and providing a high standard of living for its people. As the Smart Qatar journey evolves and expands, a comprehensive e-government system and digital infrastructure have been launched along with the initiation of two large Real Estates projects as an insight to Smart Cities, Msheireb Downtown Doha, with $5.5 billion investment, and Lusail City, that was introduced on the momentum of 2022 FIFA World Cup. This paper takes Qatar as an example of developing country and studies how Lusail Smart City strategy contributed to tangible real-life applications that were contextual and relevant to Qatar’s current and future challenges, aspirations and needs as part of its national vision in 2030, in addition to summarizing some lessons that can benefit other developing countries that would take similar steps.

Mohamed Adalbi, M Salim Ferwati, Ahmad Mohammad Ahmad, Yong Cheol Lee

Conference Proceedings

The personal development of teachers and pupils within the context of health and safety in education

This article concerns itself with questions of health and safety within the context of primary education as a prerequisite for the development of pupil competencies in the given area for their future education in the secondary and tertiary systems and also as a prerequisite for their prospects in their future professional lives. The article presents the results of research conducted among primary school teachers in the Olomouc Region and proposes measures aimed at increasing the level and quality of the education in the area of health and safety based on the conclusions of the research.

Cestmir Serafin, Jana Depesova

Conference Proceedings

Comparing design behaviours between teams with the same design background and teams with different design backgrounds during brainstorming

This study concerned about cross-disciplinary team design behaviours in the brainstorming process. The aim was to better understand the similarities and differences in design behaviours between cross-disciplinary design teams and the same discipline design teams, and how cross-disciplinary designers may impact on team design processes. Protocol analysis was used to facilitate controlled observations and experimental analyses to investigate the research questions and objectives. All teams were required to think-aloud, verbally describing their activities during the design sessions. The preliminary findings were discussed in the following sections.

Yi Teng Shih

Conference Proceedings

Who really wants automated vehicles? Determinant factors of acceptability profiles in Portugal

The perspective of automated vehicles (AVs) entering the public space is at the center of the current debate about the “mobility of the future”. Several studies have focused on drivers’ perceptions related to the use of AVs, exploring the “acceptability” and acknowledging that this is not an individual process [1]. Acceptability is constructed in a particular socio-organizational context, whose underlying conditions pose different determinant factors of usage [2]. The debate on the acceptability vs. acceptance of technologies requires the assumption of a psychological standpoint: “acceptability” is a cognitive representation that users have before using technology, i.e., it is an a priori phenomenon [3], whereas “acceptance” is an a posteriori pragmatic evaluation, inasmuch as it is “situated” in a real activity [4]. Hence, the “acceptance” is associated with an “operative representation” developed in and by the action. Bearing in mind such conceptual frontiers between the two constructs, it should be noted a point in common: they are subjective representations related to different sociodemographic characteristics and inscribed in specific conditions (e.g., driving preferences, benefits/concerns associated with AVs). Considering the fact the use of fully AVs is not yet possible, the study we present sought to explore the acceptability of AVs in the frame of a Portuguese research project. The AUTODRIVING project combines an extensive survey on the viewpoints of representative groups of drivers with a driving simulator study to evaluate driver-vehicle interaction under automated driving scenarios. A self-administrated questionnaire was developed aiming at exploring Portuguese users’ representations about the AVs, considering their expectations (e.g., the possibility to perform secondary tasks during automated driving), concerns (e.g., loss of control over the driving), levels of trust, and the benefits and risks users most associate with AVs. 500 portuguese participants (49.3% female), aged 18-81 years (M=42.16, SD=41.39), responded to the questionnaire.AVs acceptability was assessed through four items: “consider to using a fully AV”; “would prefer a fully AV to a non-automated vehicle”; “comfortable with family using an AV”; and “consider using a fully automated bus”.A two-phase cluster analysis approach was used to identify patterns of AVs acceptability. Firstly, a hierarchical method was used to identify possible appropriate solutions for the number of clusters. Secondly, the suitability of the different solutions for the number of clusters was tested with non-hierarchical cluster analyses. Four distinct clusters were identified and named based on the pattern of acceptability and their characterization regarding demographics, self-perception of technology use, driving and AVs experience. The clusters we found are: - Resigned: AVs are convenient… but are they safe? These participants consider using AVs and a fully automated bus more than average, but don’t prefer AVs to non-automated vehicles and are less comfortable than average with family using an AV. - Suspicious: AV… maybe not, we still need to know better this technology These respondents present all acceptability variables slightly below average, but a predominance of automated bus rejection; - Enthusiasts: AV, certainly yes, and benefit to its full potentialParticipants whose acceptability is above average for all the variables; this group has a predominance of higher income participants, that live in predominantly urban areas, are willing to experiment with new technologies and would like to perform all secondary tasks while driving (e.g., reading); - Objectors: No AV… we want to keep driving pleasureRespondents who score below average in all acceptability variables; this cluster has a predominance of participants 50 years old or older, who live in predominantly rural areas, prefer to wait some time to try new technologies and whose car doesn’t have any driving aid system.These quantitative findings were complemented with 7 focus groups, involving both professional and regular drivers, in order to set a “user model” that could be mobilized in the current debate about the conditions that may contribute to the acceptance of AVs. [1] Barcenilla, J., & Bastien J. (2009) L’acceptabilité des nouvelles technologies: Quelles relations avec l’ergonomie, l’utilisabilité et l’expérience utilisateur? Le Travail Humain, 72, 311–331.[2] Dubois, M., & Bobillier Chaumon, M. (2009). L'acceptabilité des technologies : bilans et nouvelles perspectives. Le travail humain, 72, 383-395.[3] Renaud, J. (2020). Évaluer l’utilisabilité, l’utilité et l’acceptabilité d’un outil didactique au cours du processus de conception continuée dans l’usage. Éducation & didactique, 14, 65-84. [4] Bobillier Chaumon, M. (2016). Acceptation située des TIC dans et par l’activité : Premiers étayages pour une clinique de l’usage. Psych Trav. et Organisat., 22, 4-21.

Liliana Cunha, Daniel Silva, Daniela Monteiro, Sara Ferreira, António Lobo, António Couto, Anabela Simões, Catarina Neto

Conference Proceedings

Dynamic Multi-Criteria Decision-Making for Identifying Vulnerable Communities for Emergency Planning

Effective decision-making is critical for emergency planners before, during, and after emergencies or disasters. Making a timely decision in these situations is complicated and dynamic, presenting conflicting criteria amongst numerous alternatives. This work proposes augmenting the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) hybrid methodology of AHP-TOPSIS with dynamic-case handling (DCH) calculations. This method is evaluated with an illustrative example of three interrelated scenarios that rank ten counties based on vulnerability related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical results demonstrate that the AHP-TOPSIS method coupled with DCH calculations is a realistic decision-making approach.

Justine Caylor, Robert Hammell

Conference Proceedings

Design of interfaces for Dyslexia and Dyscalculia Applications

In the field of Human-Computer interaction, one of the decisive factors is the graphical interface; especially in applications in which the user has specific conditions that limit its operation and performance. This is the case of the Gabarato application, which facilitates the treatment of children diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia who are cared for by Sinsoluka Center in Ecuador.During the development phase of the application, it was determined that there is a complexity to achieve specific usability interactions such as “ease of use”, “memorability” and “effectiveness”, especially with users who do not have the ability to operate peripherals of the application. computer and who present physical or cognitive difficulties to manipulate a conventional interface.Although in the preliminary studies the methodologies, standards, and protocols were met in the prototype tests; it was evident that the metrics used might not be effective; For this reason, the present work presents a proposal to measure usability interactions in children who present specific conditions; With these results, new versions of interfaces oriented to mobile devices were made.In this work, comparative data are analyzed that establish differences between the usability metrics with conventional users and users who present specific conditions or disabilities; Additionally, a discussion is offered regarding the elements that make up the interfaces and their relationship with usability heuristics and the fundamentals of human perception.

Daniel Ripalda, Miguel Cobos, Yamirlis Gallar Perez, Mario Piedra

Conference Proceedings

Data-based quality analysis in machining production: A case study on sequencing time series for classification

The introduction of AI applications is accelerated by an on-going development phase at present, creating a technology push. The application of machine learning methods not only in manufacturing research but also in manufacturing practice is still a growing field. Against a backdrop of increasingly volatile markets, highly customised products and increasingly complex production processes with consistently high-quality requirements, manufacturing is facing growing challenges. The rush of new providers of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions and machine learning applications to the market is opening up new possibilities for data collection and analysis that go beyond the classic approach of model- and empirical-based process analysis and challenge traditional approaches to production management, such as lean management.However, at the value stream level, certain problems in lean production resulting from a lack of data can be addressed precisely with IIoT applications. As an extension to the challenges described, classic production tasks should be critically reviewed for their relevance. Reducing waste is one of the key principles in lean manufacturing for which data analytics can be used to increase labour productivity by either supporting or eliminating existing processes.We present the underlying goal of replacing one step in the value chain, the measurement of product quality, with the prediction of product quality using machine tool signals from the machining process. This idea has the potential for great cost reduction in manufacturing, especially if the use of existing data sources such as machine tool signals is sufficient as a data source. Although more data is being generated in companies than ever before, its potential can only be utilised if it is selected and analysed. Collecting high-quality data in machining practice often requires installing sensors and performing time-consuming data preparation steps. Given the sparse availability of useful data and the additional cost of new data sources, we use machine tools as data providers for machining processes.The advanced analytics goal derived from this business objective is the classification of time series, in particular strong sequence classification. Although there are several approaches to this classification problem, we opted for a feature vector-based approach, which has shown both potential and limitations in previous studies.In this case study, we demonstrate the potential of time series sequencing of machine tool control data for quality prediction. A comparison of optimised feature vector-based random forest classification models trained on different sequences of a real drilling time series database is conducted. The results suggest that while sequence length has a subordinate effect, sequence overlap offers great potential for effective classification without exhaustive feature engineering, which in practice is limited by computational constraints.

Amina Ziegenbein, Joachim Metternich

Conference Proceedings

The use of smart glasses in the assembly industry can lead to an increase in the local maximum values of the forehead temperatures.

Smart glasses are an emerging digital technology designed to assist employees at a variety of industrial workplaces (1,2). This study applied facial thermography to examine the change of the forehead temperature after having worked on an assembly task with smart glasses for 30 min.METHODSTwelve adults (29.0±9.0 yrs) took part in this study. All participants had to complete a complex construction task realized by a toy model consisting of 75 parts. Two different smart glasses (Microsoft HoloLens and MagicLeapOne) and a tablet (Lenovo) were used to provide the subjects with visual instructions. The forehead temperature was measured before and after the assembly task using a thermal camera system (FLIR-ThermaCam-SC3000). The local maximum forehead temperature was determined using the ThermaCAM-RP software. A two-way rmANOVA (α= 0.05) with factors time (tpre and tpost) and medium (Tablet, HoloLens, MagicLeap) was carried out. RESULTSWorking with three media resulted in the following changes of forehead temperatures (mean and SD): Tablet: (34.95±0.52)°C to (34.41±0.81)°C, HoloLens: (34.95±0.45)°C to (34.67±0.58)°C and MagicLeap: (35.02±0.50)°C to (35.53±0.48)°C. The two-way rmANOVA revealed a statistically significant interaction between medium and time at temperature (p<0.01). The effect of medium was significant at tpost (p<0.001). The post-hoc tests showed significant differences at time tpost between MagicLeap and HoloLens (p<0.05) and between MagicLeap and tablet (p < 0.05). The effect of timing was significant for MagicLeap between tpre and tpost (p <0.05).CONCLUSIONOur findings revealed that assembling component models using smart glasses might increase the local maximum forehead temperature of the user. The differences between the smart glasses support the view that any type of smart glasses models must be thoroughly tested before using it for assembly tasks. The influence of data glasses on temperature during prolonged work should be clarified with future studies.REFERENCES(1)Glockner, Jannek, Mahn, Mahn, & Theis, 2014(2) Berkemeier, Werning, Zobel, Ickerott, & Thomas, 2017

Martin Laun, Daniel Friemert, Christian Czech, Ulrich Hartmann

Conference Proceedings

The Differences between Eye Control and Touch Games in Children's Learning

This study comparatively analyzed the effects of eye control and touch on the learning outcomes of children's educational games. According to the task completion time and performance, the article analyzes the performance of eye control and touch control on children's educational games through the method of ergonomics experiment. It is found that the performance of girls is generally better than that of boys, and the completion time of girls is shorter than that of boys. There is no obvious difference in ergonomics between the performance of eye control and touch control. The article also compared the results of the ergonomics experiment with the results of the summative test, In the results of the summative test, the improvement of the eye control group is higher than that of the touch group, which shows that the use of eye control in children's educational games is more effective .

Lang Xiao, Yafeng Niu, Tianyu Zhou, Wenjun Yang

Conference Proceedings

Movement Recognition to Analyze Disease-Related Changes in Motor Skills of Dementia Patients

Currently, about 46.8 million people worldwide have dementia. More than 7.7 million new cases occur every year. Causes and triggers of the disease are currently unknown and a cure is not available. This makes dementia, along with cancer, one of the most dangerous diseases in the world. In the field of dementia care, this work attempts to use machine learning to classify the activities of individuals with dementia in order to track and analyze disease progression and detect disease-related changes as early as possible.In collaboration with several care communities, exercise data is measured using the Apple Watch Series 6. Consultation with several care teams that work with dementia patients on a daily basis revealed that many dementia patients wear watches. Thus, smartwatches provide an unobtrusive way to measure data.These devices have the following functions: global positioning system, accelerometer, inclinometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, heart rate monitor, oximetry sensor, skin conductivity sensor, and skin temperature sensor.The goal of this project is to gain knowledge about locating, providing, and documenting motor skills during the course of dementia.Caregivers will document patient activities while wearing the watch. Data from the aforementioned sensors are sent to the database at 20 data packets per second via a socket.DecisionTreeClassifier, KNeighborsClassifier, logistic regression, GaussianNB, RandomForestClassifier, Support Vector Machine, and Multilayer Perceptron classification algorithms are used. The test and training data are generated from different subjects to eliminate possible overfitting.The system transmits the labeled data on a six-second frequency (beams), in which 120 data sets are compressed from the previously mentioned sensors. Thus, it is possible to detect minute changes in arm positions. This methodology, after a six-month series of training and testing runs, shows results of over 90% probability for arm positions and over 80% probability for very fine granular activities (reading, playing games, eating), depending on the classification algorithm.

Sergio Staab, Ludger Martin

Conference Proceedings

SiRobotics – an assistive experimental robot

SiRobotics is a European-funded project that involves 17 partners among companies and universities, which worked together to design and develop novel solutions of collaborative assistive ICT robotics with advanced capabilities to support caregivers, users and families in healthcare services, while act-ing with a socially acceptable behavior. The aim of the project is to support weak users in their daily activities, whether they live in home environments or elder care facilities; assessing the progress of their physical and cognitive decline, i.e. cognitive frailty, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, etc., will enable early diagnosis, objective assessment, therapy control and rehabilitation. Si-Robotics system will be used within the context of elder care facilities or home environments, characterized by the presence of frail people requiring gentle and dedicated attention and interaction, assisted by professional and/or in-formal caregivers and medical operators, working with very scheduled and demanding tasks; a first prototype developed in all its physical and interac-tional features is being tested in a simulation with real end users. The paper will describe our design process and the following choices, involving the shape and aesthetics of the robot.

Niccolò Casiddu, Francesco Burlando, Claudia Porfirione, Annapaola Vacanti

Conference Proceedings

Future Footprint: Explore the Unexpected Future from the Existing Signals Through the Prototype Inspiration

Under the exponential growth of the computing power of artificial intelligence, the revolution of thinking that designers pursue turn to qualitative rather than quantitative. Instead of trying to capture as many signals as possible, it's judging and internalizing the signals. Design and art practitioners are widely considered to be the most divergent thinkers, and the early stages of design thinking include a variety of heuristic tools to guide users through brainstorming and propose as many solutions as possible in a short period. We analyzed the research of creativity generation on designers, restored and summarized their commonalities upward, and established the basic format of design signals. Based on this, we explored how to inspire designers to pull out from the rigid thinking system, to discover more unknown connotations, more perspectives, and possibilities for understanding. This paper attempts to promote a path of inspiration to explore the desirable future. By exploring and analyzing the path of designers to generate design inspiration, we propose the Prototype Inspiration tool of the future footprint and start from three dimensions of future signals, values, and personal experience. Inspire the design team to generate a quality conception of the future based on the separation, integration, and reorganization of real signals in a short time. And introduce the prototype inspiration tool with future thinking through the application and verification in the real teaching environment, which expands the dimension and depth of design ideas in the early stage of design. We inclined to think future ideas not as being created out of thin air but as being stimulated, as breaking down stereotypes by reconstructing vague, scattered information. This requires developing sensitivity to information and an accurate sense of trends. The prototype heuristic is a preliminary solution proposed by us at the present stage. In the following sections, we will apply the prototype heuristic to a more specific design context to test the effective range of the tool and discuss how the interactive effects and heuristic effects change when multiple people use AR tools remotely. We have several directions for our future work. One direction is to recognize the impact of our proposed prototype heuristic tools on the design concept in new or existing tools, and to examine the impact of creative output on the overall design process. Second, we will further quantify the designer's propensity and familiarity with the various signals, and how they use affects design activities. Third, try to bring both the input of creative inspiration and the output of creative ideas into the prototype inspiration system, that is, to realize the whole thinking process in AR. Fourth, build a community and an open platform for future resources to support online and offline collaboration among team members from multiple backgrounds.

Lin Zhu, Wentong Huang, Fu Zhiyong

Conference Proceedings

Assistive Technology: Design and Implementation of an Eye Tracking Based Electric Wheelchair Control System for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a set of non-progressive alterations which affect muscle tone, posture, and movement. CP is produced by a brain injury or malformation in one or more brain areas that control movement. It is the most common motor disability in childhood. It affects the autonomy and socialization of children and generates great pressure on the family; therefore, children with CP require the aid of a wheelchair, which is usually driven by the user or pushed by another person. Even using a wheelchair controlled with a joystick becomes complicated because it depends on the control of gross and fine motor skills. Then, there is necessary a more amicable and accessible way to control a wheelchair. Since the ocular muscles are one of the few that still fulfill their function in people with CP, in this paper, we present the design and implementation of an eye-tracking-based electric wheelchair control system for children with spastic and mixed CP. This system includes a low-cost electric wheelchair built with PCV tubes, a Microsoft Surface Pro Tablet where the software is running, and a PCEye Mini device used to monitor the gaze. The PCEeye Mini sends the signs to the mainboard that controls the electric motors, allowing the children to steer the wheelchair by themselves using their gaze. The software has three components: the first manages the application data, the second represents the model graphically displayed on the screen, and the third receives and manages user inputs. The application has three interfaces for the start of the system that children can access since the home screen, and each one gives the user different control system parameters options. Eight children with CP participated in three experiments to validate the efficiency and safety of the system. Each experiment was developed in an internal and external environment with three different floor soils: cement, ceramic, and wood. The results showed a 100% efficiency and safety of the system for children use. The calibration process was fast and simple, the activation of directional arrows on the screen with the gaze gave 100% performance, the power consumption did not show a difference between the type of floor, and the electric wheelchair did not slip on any floor. The software maintained stable communication with the hardware through a serial communication protocol, allowing a correct execution of the commands. This work shows that the implementation of the eye-tracking technology in the electric wheelchair works successfully. This system operates effectively and is easy to control for children with CP, improving the children’s autonomy in terms of mobility. This software can be implemented on any PC, and more functions can be added to the same software without affecting its performance. This developed system offers an intelligent and different option to help children with motor deficits, which is a great contribution to society.

Katherine Hernandez, Veronica Salinas, Hugo Torres, Fernando Estevez, Diego Almeida- Galárraga, Omar Alvarado Cando

Conference Proceedings

The future of skills in mining automation control rooms

This study reviews the possibility of a higher education curriculum at work within the role of a mine controller of mining automation systems, whereby the traditional pedagogical framework for higher education is gained through work-based, experiential learning and partnered with a strong and sustainable work-based education program. The research aims to evaluate current academic pathways for technology users in autonomous mine control rooms and examines if there is an existing ‘curriculum’ already present in work-based practice within the control room that could be tailored to suit a higher education. Advances in technology and work demand in autonomous mine control rooms have contributed to a resources gap in the domain. This has been coupled with poorly integrated systems and pressures of skilling the current workforce to remain relevant and capable of providing outcomes expected using new technologies. Additionally, when trying to integrate ‘soft skills’ while keeping pace with changing technology and increased automation, the question of academic validity of the role provides an opportunity to lead the way in work-based learning. This paper utilises behavioural and social science methodologies of qualitative research to understand the knowledge and skills requirements of a mine controllers’ role when working with new technologies. Through interviews, in-situ observations, and analysis of job descriptions of current mine control roles, data was collected and analysed to reveal any shortcomings that currently exist in the mine control role relevant to the application of Human Machine Interfaces (HMI). Further examination was conducted on human factors issues found within an autonomous control room to understand what was required in the anticipated ‘curriculum at work’. Observed behaviours and actions were triangulated with informal interviews and a literature search to enable the researchers to form a better understanding of the mine controller role and the application of knowledge within the role as the mining industry moves into a more digital world. In reviewing the application of higher education degrees within work, the paper also examines new methods of delivery such as gamification to supplement what is being learned in the workplace and motivate the learner to increase their knowledge. Qualitative methodologies of organisational analysis reveal similarities of knowledge being applied within work-based learning in the control room that exists currently in curricula being taught at universities in fields such as engineering and management.This research evaluated the specific role of the mine controller of mining automation systems and the introduction of mining automation and examined current literature and research revealing large gaps in the understanding of the mine controller role, the effects of increased automation on the employees within these roles, and the integration of humans and autonomous systems. The researcher suggests that the changing pace of technology advancements could see an end or at least a slowing down of several traditional university degrees and increased application of adult learning principles through work-based curricular.

Peta Chirgwin

Conference Proceedings

User-Centered Development and Evaluation of a Physical Ultrafast Charging Interface

IntroductionThe CoolEV consortium, consisting of Porsche, Hydac, ZSW, IFS and the University of Applied Science Esslingen (UAS Esslingen) is currently working on the fast charging station of the future. In this context, the UAS Esslingen is developing a new type of charging interface, which, in addition to the electrical lines, also provides fluid lines for temperature control of the vehicle battery. Main research areas of the current work are a user-friendly physical charging interface and the overall operating concept of the charging process. The novel interface and the evaluation of user-friendliness are highlighted in this contribution.ProblemState of the art CCS charging connectors have added cooling to the contacts and the electrical lines, in order to prevent overheating within the connector [1]. The remaining bottleneck in charging speed now is the vehicle battery. To control its temperature, the novel charging interface, developed in the CoolEV consortium, provides two fluid lines, adding the capability of externally cooling the vehicle. Disadvantage of this addition is an increase in size, weight and line stiffness, compared to current charging connectors. This could cause problems concerning handling or carrying for a user. There needs to be a verification, if the interface is still usable for everyone and for all types of electric vehicles. Another question in need of an answer is, if a person would prefer the combination of fluid and electrical lines in one plug or a solution consisting of two separate plugs, keeping the CCS connection and adding a second line for the fluid.Method of ResolutionTwo different trials were held to answer the questions that were brought up while developing the physical interface. At first, a test rig with an adjustable ergonomics model of the new hand piece was built. The sockets, simulating the vehicle side of the rig, are arranged in two different heights, both on opposite ends of a comfort zone, determined by means of the digital human-model RAMSIS® [2]. Using this rig, 30 participants were guided through the experiment, each using the new interface and subsequently answering a questionnaire about their experience. For an objective review of the experience, every participant was also filmed while conducting the charging process. Using the videos different problems were identified, mostly involving body position and sight of the vehicle socket, giving inputs for improvement of the hand piece. For the second trial, the rig was extended with an assembly containing the dual line solution. The improved hand piece was 3D printed and added to the single line solution. In a comparison experiment, 30 participants used both variants and rated their experience, resulting in the identification of a user favourite. The experiment results prove that a one line solution is usable for everybody and preferred to a dual line solution. The significance of the results were statistically tested and secured.[1] PHOENIX CONTACT Deutschland GmbH, “High Power Charging – die Technologie für Schnellladestationen,” 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.phoenixcontact.com/online/portal/de?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dede/web/main/products/technology_pages/subcategory_pages/High_power_charging/b1c8a245-f088-4fad-b144-cea31e7f9a82.[2] Human Solutions GmbH, “3D-Menschmodell & Ergonomiesimulation,” 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.human-solutions.com/de/produkte/ramsis-allgemein/index.html.

Fabian Schmiel, Simon Buck, Lampros Tsolakidis, Alexander Müller

Conference Proceedings

Consumer acceptance of shared e-scooter services for short-distance mobility

Taiwan is an island country with the highest density of scooter commuters in the world. The promotion of e-scooters and shared electric two-wheeler service are to tackle the problems coming from scooter commuting and air pollution. With the information and communications technology (ICT) development, the scooter sharing, electric scooter (e-scooter) sharing, and electric bike (e-bike) sharing services have been launched on the Taiwanese market since 2018. The shared vehicle system consists a fleet of vehicles that are used by one or more travelers on each day. Shared vehicles offer the convenience of the private vehicle and more flexibility than public transportation alone. Sharing concepts provide a cost-effective and efficient utilization of vehicles, and reduce parking requirements. This paper concerns the scooter sharing service in the Taiwan context. The shared scooter applies ICT, e.g., wireless technologies and mobile devices, to enable accessibility for all travelers who have with a driver's license to complete the scooter rental, usage, and payment via mobile apps replacing the original scooter rental procedure, e.g., paper-based work and scooter key. The shared scooters meet mobility needs to replace the private use of individual scooters. Therefore, travelers of the scooter sharing gain the benefits of a private scooter without the costs and burdens of its ownership. Such service creates a new mobile-as-a-service market model and an opportunity for travelers to have a scooter ride. At present, the Taiwanese scooter sharing service provides the e-scooter models dedicated to shared service, and will gradually introduce the private scooters/e-scooters into the service in the future. This is to meet the short-term goal of travelers' commuting needs and the long-term goal of reducing the total number of road vehicles. This study forms an investigation into the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) evaluation method based on empirical research and survey studies for further evaluating. It is to investigate the factors that may influence the user acceptance of the shared scooters. An experimental design was employed to evaluate the user acceptance of the scooter sharing service that located at Asia Eastern University of Science and Technology that provides faculty, students, and nearby residents with free services of short-distance mobility. A questionnaire has been designed to obtain subjective feedback after using the shared service from the participants. 157 individuals participated in the experiment and completed the subjective rating. Analyses were conducted using the SPSS software, Version 22.0, was assessed by Factor analysis, reliability analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. It is to verify the feasibility of the shared scooter service in the Taiwanese two-wheeler market and further explore the important factors that positively affect the user behavioral intention towards the shared scooter service. Finally, the research results also provide a reference basis for the design of future smart Transportation. This may facilitate to create a new ecology for the scooter or e-scooter industries and to achieve the purpose of reducing scooters on the road. Also, it is expected for driving related industrial development and electric two-wheeler market growth and improving air quality and living environment.

Fei-Hui Huang

Conference Proceedings

Enhancing the Computation of Barrier-free Routes via Crowdsourcing

Navigation systems rely on a large amount of geodata for their route com-putations. Depending on the used map material and application, this geo-data includes barrier information, such as staircases or steep inclines, which is helpful for mobility impaired people when looking for a barrier-free route. On the basis of OpenStreetMap (OSM), which is included in the GraphHopper routing engine, we have developed the mobility app WheelScout , which computes barrier-free routes using the users’ individu-al mobility profile as well as barrier information which is extracted from OSM but also included by our users – both manually and automatically via data which the sensors in the mobile devices gather via crowdsourcing. Us-ing the example of inclines, we will demonstrate how we automatically compute the information of this barrier by gathering information on baro-metric altitude data and using those to compute the degree of the incline and therefore the barrier.

Bettina Harriehausen-Mühlbauer

Conference Proceedings

Data Sources and the Uncertainty of Information (UoI) Experimental Research

Information plays a vital role in the courses of action taken on the battlefield. In the era of increased available data and a wide variety of sensors there are various potential sources of rich data that can be collected. However, the uncertainty related to the sources of the data remains a challenge that needs to be addressed for supporting actions and decisions. Sources of data can include categories such as information, network, devices, and visualization. To address this challenge, DEVCOM ARL researchers conducted an experimental user study with 26 soldiers of varying military occupational specialties (MOSs) and years of service (YOS) to get there input. For the user study two scenarios were presented to uncover potential patterns of concerns soldiers’ may have related to uncertainty of information (UoI). This allows additional study to better understand soldiers’ decision-making processes particularly when considering selected categories of sources of information and associated uncertainty. The results of the experiment will be used to continue the research into artificial reasoning for creating more adaptable and trustworthy intelligent systems to aid the warfighter.

Adrienne Raglin, Aleah Emlet, Justine Caylor, John Richardson, Mark Mittrick, Somiya Metu

Conference Proceedings

Augmented Reality in Robotics Learning

The objective of the manuscript is to determine the impact of an application with augmented reality, through a quasi-experimental study to improve the robotics-oriented teaching-learning process in students of the Mechatronics technical area at the Dayuma Kento Educational Unit - Ecuador. This research has a quantitative and exploratory, descriptive and explanatory approach. The study population was made up of 30 students subdivided into two groups: experimental and control. A pre-test was applied to all study participants as a starting point, to later carry out the intervention with the application of augmented reality for the experimental group, and for the control group with pedagogical cards. A comparative analysis was carried out with the results of a knowledge post-test applied to both groups. The study topic covered in the five sessions was the same for both groups, and they were designed following the ERCA methodology, under a constructivist approach where students must build their own knowledge in a favorable learning environment. The results of the pretest and posttest were analyzed to verify the hypothesis, showing that there are positive and statistically significant results, which affirm that the use of a technological tool with augmented reality has a favorable impact on the teaching-learning process of Robotics. It was also observed that the group of students who used the app were motivated and developed their research skills, achieving significant learning.

Fabian Noriega, Mireya Zapata

Conference Proceedings

Art-technology: contributions to future intertwining of creative action

The main interest of this paper is to present how art can contribute to the process and development of computational algorithms - in particular, for artificial intelligence. The rationale for this work is that we can no longer underestimate technology as a mere instrumental manifestation; much less believe in its supposed neutrality, since technology brings the dominant discourses embedded in it; and a critical posture is necessary to think about future creative actions with the use of technology. This makes the artist and the art fundamental pieces of this puzzle of representational systems, modeling, and creative cognitive procedures. The premise is that understanding these representational systems and their procedures opens a field of possibilities both for the artist's experiences and for the computer scientist in the development of their programs, in intertwining of creative actions.

Silvia Laurentiz

Conference Proceedings

Parametric modeling of digital human based on Unity

Traditional mass manufacturing is unable to meet the needs of customers in the current era of material abundance, and product customization is more popular currently. Online shopping puts forward higher requirements for wearable product customization. This requires manufacturers to accurately and quickly generate consumer models to produce customized products. Human body model is an indispensable auxiliary means in man-machine process, but it has not been paid enough attention to, and its development has certain limitations. What modern product's man-machine design process needs is a kind of human body model that can really participate in the design process and play an evaluation and decision-making role in the calculation, selection and determination of man-machine parameters of product form. Therefore, the parameterized modeling of virtual human body needs to be able to generate the human body model of corresponding geometry and size quickly, which serves for virtual simulation and ergonomics design. The method proposed in this paper is to solve the problem of quickly generating customized digital mannequin. Digital man is the representation of geometric and behavioral characteristics of human beings, the modeling and expression of various characteristics of natural human beings in the virtual world, and the highly digital reconstruction of various biological characteristics of human body. Due to the close relationship with human being, virtual human technology is applied in all aspects of today's society, especially in the military field, aerospace field, aviation field and navigation field. Therefore, how to make virtual human model and movement closer to real people is a hot research topic. Unity is a real-time 3D interactive content creation and operation platform. All creators, including game development, art, architecture, car design, film and television, use Unity to bring their ideas to life. Compared with other digital human modeling platforms such as Siemens Jack, this platform has a great advantage. It can directly import digital human modeled by other modeling software such as Maya and 3Dmax, without the need to preset an initial digital human in the software. This paper realizes the import and parameterization of digital human model based on Unity. First, the import of FBX format digital human model is realized through the simulation environment of Unity development model. Second, linear regression was used to enlarge and shrink the joints of the model in the way of rolling bar to realize the parameterization of the digital human model. Finally, each parameter of the model is displayed in real time, and the model can be parameterized by modifying parameters directly. At the same time, this paper investigated UMA parametric modeling method in Unity. The key parts of this method are Slot, Overlay, DNA and Race. Slot is the mesh, which is the basic unit of character. An Overlay is a texture that is placed over the mesh and acts as the skin of the character. DNA is a set of parameters that change shape rather than biological DNA; Race is a group of slots that links to a specific mesh for men and women. UMA and the linear regression adopted in this paper can not only realize parametric modeling, but also realize skin changing and other functions. However, both the linear regression and UMA proposed in this paper are time-consuming to change the digital human model and there is some error between the model and the real person.

Xiao Chen, Xiang Xu, Xin Song, Zhen Zhang, Jianwei Niu

Conference Proceedings

Ergonomic evaluation of aircraft maintenance based on VACP model

In recent years, aircraft has become one of the most important means of transportation for people to travel, playing a vital role in people's life. With the continuous growth of China's aircraft traffic and the continuous expansion of fleet size, higher requirements are put forward in the field of aircraft maintenance and design in order to ensure the safe operation of aircraft. However, the workload of civil aviation aircraft maintenance personnel is increasing and has not yet been paid enough attention. Due to limited resources such as the operator’s information processing capacity, memory and attention, unreasonable workflows and unbalanced workloads can lead to operator performance degradation and even errors when conducting heavy and time-critical tasks. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the workload of civil aviation maintenance personnel. At present, the main methods of workload assessment, such as questionnaire survey, secondary task evaluation and physiological index evaluation, provide great help for workload assessment. Whereas the questionnaire method is susceptible to the influence of expert experience, the secondary task evaluation method has higher requirements for experimental design and control, and the physiological index evaluation method has more complicated physiological signal acquisition procedures, long cycle and high experimental cost. The VACP model, a powerful cognitive tool, proposes that workload consists of Visual (V), Auditory (A), Cognitive (C), and Psychomotor (P). The VACP model can reflect the nature of workload more comprehensively. This paper designs a workload evaluation system based on VACP model. First, people set up the therblig's analysis function module. For any maintenance, the module can decompose the activity into a combination of maintenance therbligs, together with related attributes such as name, type and duration. The system determines whether there are uneconomical, unbalanced, and unreasonable phenomena in the action through the Gilbreths principle, and the rational adjustment of the operator's action flow, so as to achieve the improvement of the overall efficiency of the operator's maintenance work, and to make the operator's physical and mental pleasure to a certain extent promote. Second, we designed a workload evaluation module based on the VACP model. We evaluated the workload values of the four channels according to the maintenance video. The system will calculate the workload of the maintenance operator based on the VACP function, and output the calculation results as a line graph to the system interface. In addition, in order to verify the effectiveness of this function, this paper took civil aviation aircraft maintenance tasks as the research object and recruited a total of 6 male college students to participate the maintenance experiment. The experiment verifies the accuracy and validity of the system output. Experimental results show that the functional model of the system is accurate and effective. However, the function model of the system based on the VACP model ignores the time factor, because the length of the task will affect the operator workload. Therefore, the function model should consider the maintenance workload with the time variable in future. This system can be anticipated to be applied to aircraft maintenance workload assessment, and greatly improve maintenance efficiency, which has a great significance for the ergonomic status of the maintenance personnel.

Xiao Chen, Zhen Zhang, Xin Song, Xiang Xu, Jianwei Niu

Conference Proceedings

Artificial intelligence solutions in Parkinson therapy

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in Europe [1]. PD requires a high-frequency therapy offer for a sustainable improvement of the communicative abilities. To improve speech therapy care in PD, technology-based therapies can be useful, essential in these digital health applications is that objective feedback is available for correct exercise performance. The "Speech" application from the ISi-Speech research project [1] provides technology-based training for the therapy of dysarthria in PD. The overall goal of the application is to improve speech functions and thus promote participation and quality of life for those affected. Methodologically, a strictly user-centered implementation approach is planned. Therapists* implement ISi-Speech into an existing evidenced based therapy format. Assumptions about the development of digital maturity levels among therapists*, best practice models for inpatient and outpatient therapy settings and implementation strategies will be identified through the feasibility study. The intervention is part of a public project of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany. The project humAine - human centered AI network focuses on different areas of business and healthcare. This specific use case is about the implementation of AI in speech therapy with the aim to sustainably simplify the workflow, identify competency strategies and identify best-practice models.

Anika Thurmann, Kerstin Prof. Dr. Bilda, Fiona Dörr

Conference Proceedings

Correlational Analysis Between Work Absenteeism and Aspects of Human Behavior

This research aims to determine the relationship between medical absenteeism, sociodemographic characteristics and human behavior in the company Gran Colombia Gold Segovia. For this purpose, a study with a quantitative approach and correlational scope has been developed, based on the database of absenteeism provided by the company and made up of 832 records generated during 2020. A simple randomized sampling was used for the selection of the sample, considering a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of 5%, resulting in a total of 264 records to be analyzed. To associate the study variables, bivariate tables are considered, making use of statistics according to the parametric behavior. According to the above, it is evidenced that trauma and poisoning correspond to more than 51% of the total causes of absences, which were analyzed in a predominantly male population (90%) aged between 40 and 50 years with low educational level, that is, incomplete primary or secondary school, population who have spent a large part of their working life in activities related to mining and inherited from their parents and siblings.On the other hand, it is considered that absenteeism is significantly related to lifestyle, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, excess body mass index, low physical activity and unhealthy eating habits, aspects that explain a substantial proportion of the absence from work of the personnel working in this company, and also obey to adaptive and self-organized human behaviors, which were learned from generation to generation, as well as the learned processes to the development of the technical skills of the mining labor.

Luis Gabriel Gutiérrez, María Alexandra Malagón Torrez, Jaime Alonso Tobón Gaviria

Conference Proceedings

Are Rider-Horse or Centaurs intelligent Human Systems Integration? First Sketch of reversible and non-reversible human technology/machine/AI Symbiosis

Technological progress in form of machine intelligence increases the capabilities of machines to think and act autonomously on the world. This might only result in human and societal progress if these technical systems are intelligently integrated with humans, organizations and the environment, i.e. with intelligent Human Systems Integration.One key paradigm to enable this is human machine cooperation: The ability of agents to work together (e.g. Hoc & Lemoine 1997ff). An example for this is the relationship of a rider and a horse, which has been successfully translated to technical systems in form of shared and cooperative control (e.g. Flemisch et al. 2003ff), and as partially and highly automated, cooperatively interacting systems e.g. in the car domain (e.g. Stiller et al. 20019ff). Another paradigm is that of human machine symbiosis, in which two different species, here humans and machines, have a close and long term relationship, usually for the mutual benefit. This paradigm has been exploited e.g. for symbiotic driving schemes in the car domain (Abbink et al.2010ff). An extreme example of symbiosis that of a centaur, a creature from Greek mythology with a horse body and a human head. Applied to technology this metaphor is discussed for human-computer teams e.g. in chess competitions (e.g. Huffpost 2014) and in NATO for human-machine teaming (SCI 2020). Rider-horse and centaur stand for two different kinds of symbiotic relationships: A non-mandatory, reversible symbiosis like the rider and horse. Applied to humans and machines these are systems, where the humans can still do tasks without the support of the machines. A centaur is a non-reversable, mandatory symbiosis, where none of the symbionts can live and act without the other symbiont. The article will present that state of the art of cooperation, and of symbiotic human machine systems. It will structure and cluster symbiosis especially from a system and functions perspective, and make the differences visible with striking examples from the world of smart phones, automated cars and highly automated defense systems. Finally, the contribution will discuss what the desired kind of symbiotic relationship we as humans want and should strive for in intelligent human systems integration.

Frank Flemisch, Marcel Baltzer

Conference Proceedings

Health and occupational risks analysis in custom border offices

In line with National and European regulations, containing recommendations on the application of legal safety and health requirements for work and for the use of work equipment, the risk analysis has been conducted for two different positions in custom border offices, such as: the custom officer, acting in the non-destructive control department and the customs laboratory, including laboratory physician, biologist, chemical engineer, biochemist. This article aims to present the risk analysis performed using the national method for assessing the risks of accidents and occupational diseases of workers, in order to facilitate the fulfillment of obligations of employers in the prevention of risks at work. The results are compared with those obtained using questionnaires method, based on Delphi approach. Finally, recommendations are addressed to all interested parties, such as: employers and workers in operational processes. A brief action plan is drafted to support regulations implementation in custom border offices.

Irina Severin, Gabriela Nalbitoru, Mihai Caramihai

Conference Proceedings

Functional diversity: Needs for technological accessibility for learning

Since the pandemic beginning, the students’ problems became visible, particularly those who have a disability when changing their way of working; in the same way, teachers do not know about technological tools to work through the virtual modality. This lived reality has positive and negative results. Among the negatives are: the disengagement from the educational system, the withdrawal of new knowledge and the breakdown of their relationship with classmates and teachers. On the positive side, it can be mentioned that this pandemic has been an opportunity for both teachers and students, it has made it possible to search for learning and teaching strategies and methodologies based mainly on the virtual modality. This article describes an investigation carried out in Ecuador, in which the techno-logical accessibility conditions, the required competencies and the needs from the functional diversity of 212 children and adolescents with disabilities were identified. Subsequently, a Technological Accessibility Plan for Students with Disabilities (TAPSD) was developed, based on person-centered planning (PCP) and universal design for learning (UDL), in which the use of different technological applications is proposed depending on the students’ needs and skills).

Karina Delgado, Janio Jadan-Guerrero

Conference Proceedings

Usability design of concrete grouting equipment

Concrete grouting equipment is often used in engineering construction in industries such as bridge construction and highway construction, and is an indispensable part of engineering equipment. The current research on concrete grouting equipment is mainly focused on technological breakthroughs and innovations, and there are deficiencies in the usability of equipment. This research aims to study the usability design of concrete grouting equipment. Through the overview of usability, The development status and future trends of concrete grouting equipment ，user interviews summarize the usability design elements of concrete grouting equipment, and optimize the design of concrete grouting equipment.

Yuchen Xi, Xue Chen

Conference Proceedings

The role of the AI availability and perceived risks on AI adoption and organizational values

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence in various machines which are programmed to think like humans. AI could have many forms, such as Natural Language processing (NLP), expert systems, unsuper-vised learning, content extraction, question answering, image recognition, machine vision, speech to text and machine translation, and Robotics. De-spite the potential of AI technologies, little is known about its adoption by organizations worldwide, and especially in the Arab World and the Middle East. Thus, this research intends to investigate the relationships and the im-pact of the availability of AI technologies and the associated perceived risks on AI adoption in organizations and its perceived organizational values, and also considering two mediating variables: AI replacing humans and AI creat-ing jobs, in one Arab and Gulf country, the UAE. By reviewing the literature and describing the AI applications and services available in UAE, a research model was proposed and tested quantitatively on a sample of 150 employees who are familiar with organizational AI technologies. The results revealed that the availability of AI technologies significantly impacts organizations’ decisions to adopt those technologies in the UAE. In addition, the more the AI applications are available, the more the AI will be replacing humans in job positions and opportunities. On the other hand, perceived security, priva-cy, and technical risks can significantly influence organizations’ intentions to adopt AI technologies, and can, surprisingly, contribute to creating new job opportunities which serve the human side positively. The research concludes in some implications, limitation, and future directions.

Maryam Alzaabi, Ahmed Shuhaiber

Conference Proceedings

Hearing loss, mobile applications and inclusive social environments: Approach to learning sign language for children without disabilities

This project was developed in the interest of social problems by inclusion of people with hearing loss in social environment. The investigation was carried out in two stages. The first, a diagnostic analysis focused on the learning of people in the social environment, instead of the individual with disabilities. The project has used a mixed research approach, in the qualitative approach, with semi-structured interviews to the social and family circle of people with hearing loss and to the individual himself. In addition, professionals in the area of learning sign language, expert professionals in special education, were consulted. In the quantitative aspect, surveys were carried out on a group of parents from the "Celite" Bilingual Educational Unit of Ambato city, to determine their willingness to learn sign language to promote social inclusion in their children. Likewise, it was possible to identify their behavior in the face of digital technologies. With the data obtained, it was possible to determine the feasibility of developing interactive applications. The resulting technological application, shows a friendly structure for learning basic phrases in sign language for early ages, focused on children without disabilities. The second stage of the research, with the interactive application for mobile devices running, it was possible to determine the feasibility of using new technologies and communication. The interactive application has audiovisual content in digital animations and interactive resources typical of an application on mobile devices. The App was tested using the target group, children and parents. Subsequently, it was evaluated through the application of surveys to parents, interpreters and people with hearing loss, who certified their experience as users and evaluated its relevance, where favorable results were collected for this initiatives.

Jose Oleas Orozco, Angel Mena, Daniel Ripalda

Conference Proceedings

Comparative color analysis of icons and logos

In the field of design, both logo and icon are the most common visual symbols. Among them, the logo is more commercial, and its purpose is to spread the value connotation of the brand. At the same time, the icon has more substantial functionality, which makes it easier for users to identify and Understand the functions of related products. To explore whether there are some potential human factors or design guidelines when designers are designing an icon or logo, which may cause the difference in colour between the two, this article attempts to combine image processing technology to analyze the colour characteristics of the logo and icon image And research. We extracted features such as colour moment and brightness. We used a machine learning classifier to prove that the two colour features are quite different. This research can be used as the basis for quantitative research on the difference between logo and icon. At the end of the paper, we have a prospect for future research.

Xiaoying Yang, Hongyi Yang, Xingsong Wang

Conference Proceedings

Evaluation of the Readability and Legibility of Fonts on the Cockpit Interface

The fonts on the aircraft interface play a vital role in the speed and accuracy of the pilot's decision-making process. In this paper, we create a new type-face to display textual information on the aircraft interfaces, then compare it with two fonts (Futura and Helvetica) widely used in aeronautical context. The font/background contrast threshold measurement and eye movement experiment for visual search of target characters are used to evaluate the readability and legibility of fonts. From this evaluation, we find that the leg-ibility and readability of Air are better than the other two fonts in the case of low contrast. The results produced by Helvetica and Futura are not much different but have advantages over Air in some characters. The experimental conclusions and data provide important scientific basis for the development and evaluation of cockpit fonts.

Xia Shuang, Huang Shan, Haiyan Wang

Conference Proceedings

Smart healthcare service system for elderly based on AIoMT

In the age of digitalization, digital technologies offer incredible opportunities to the healthcare sector. No matter where elderly people are, they have to interact with various digital devices in the real world. By using digital sensors, smart devices, Internet of Medical Things, big data, cloud/edge computing, Artificial Intelligence and other advanced technologies, the smart system can observe and analyze the lives of the elderly, dynamically access their information and data, connect people, materials and institutions, and then actively manages and responds to their demands in an intelligent manner. The system can promote interaction and cooperation among social institutions and all stakeholders, help organizations and individuals make informed decisions through information sharing, facilitate the rational allocation of resources, and finally ensure that elderly people can get the services they need. The smart system can integrate and coordinate social systems to realize the dynamic and refined management of the elderly.

Shuang Liang, Min Zhou, Peian Yao, Francesca Tosi

Conference Proceedings

Quantitative evaluation method of small and medium-sized residential layout

The layout of a family dwelling has a significant impact on the living quality. Therefore, evaluation of the layout is very important. For the purpose of evaluating the layout of dwelling quantitatively, referring to spatial syntax, in this paper, three two-dimensional indicators, namely convenience, privacy and utility, are proposed after analyzing users’ psychological process and demand. First, dividing the interior plane into different sections, such as master bedroom and second bedroom, and then a mathematical model was proposed to calculate the relationships between each section including accessibility and correlation of each area referring to users' demands, so that users can evaluate the layout mathematically. The mathematical model provides a simple evaluation method for designers to design the apartment. It also provides a scientific basis for users to set out or remodel the apartment.

Junhui Fei, Beibei Sun

Conference Proceedings

A Framework for Usability Testing using EEG Signals with Emotion Recognition

The analysis of emotions has utility in several applications that cross multiple fields, including education, medicine, psychology, software engineering, accessibility in-habitation studies, healthcare, robotics, marketing, and business. Studying emotions can play an essential role in software engineering, particularly in the domain of usability testing. For example, emotions can be used to determine whether a specific software application achieves acceptable levels of user satisfaction. Furthermore, emotions can be used to test product usability and all its aspects. Emotion detection in usability testing is a first-of-its-kind tool that has the potential to improve software production (designing and interaction), thus enabling the ongoing revolution in software development to continue onwards.This work aims to build an original framework for emotion detection using electroencephalography (EEG) brain signals, which is then applied in usability testing as a case study. This will create opportunities to gain an in-depth understanding of user satisfaction in a precise and accurate way, especially when compared to traditional approaches.

Arwa Aledaily, Soffien Gannoun, Hatim Aboalsamh, Kais Belwafi

Conference Proceedings

Agile Methodologies in the Fashion Industry

SCRUM is an agile management methodology in the development of software systems. A first major problem is that production environments are re-luctant to accept agile methodologies as a guide in their processes, due to lack of knowledge in their application. Some researchers even state that the empirical evidence of the results of applying agile methodologies is still limited.Another big problem for the textile industry is its own dynamics, since fashion changes rapidly and in short periods, therefore, research, development, manu-facturing, and distribution times must also be short. Additionally, the textile in-dustry generally requires more effective solutions to address competitiveness in the globalized market.To measure the level of contribution of agile methodologies. We have consid-ered a large textile company in our country in which the Kanban and SCRUM methodologies have been applied, to control orders and production. The pro-duction was guided by the SCRUM methodology, and the process control was adapted to Kanban boards. People and processes were reorganized to control production processes. A set of production teams from the company formed the SCRUM teams. A terminology adapted to their everyday jargon was applied by readjusting both SCRUM and Kanban. It is necessary to consider that the par-ticipating group does not have knowledge of computer technology. The contribution of this document is to analyze, organize, and show how agile software development contributes to the organization of processes adopted by the textile industry. For this purpose, an analytical framework is built, to guide the production process in a visual, incremental, cooperative, and controlled way, systematizing the textile production processes. Agile methodologies and tools were applied to efficiently manage the production systems of the textile company.This proposal is useful research for small and large companies outside software development to feel attracted by agile tools and methodologies, improving the management of personnel associated with production processes.The best thing about this proposal is the inclusion of performance indicators known as Key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs measure the behavior of a process or activity. This research will consider these types of indicators to show results on the inclusion of agile methodologies in the control of produc-tion in a selected textile industry.In conclusion, the textile production processes required a broad evaluation to be adapted to a Scrum and Kanban framework. The schemes and rules defined for the automation of the platform in the textile production process will serve as a reference framework for future implementations in textile processes. The adap-tation of the SCRUM framework allows you to reorganize the way of working within textile organizations, defining a structure and an agile work culture in the different teams of an organization. As future work, it is expected to apply other agile methodologies to production processes, to establish comparisons in terms of management and process de-velopment. The quality standards that are required to be implemented must be associated with the ISO standards of each industry.

Maritzol Tenemaza, Carlos Sarzosa

Conference Proceedings

Comparative Study on Implicit Guidance in Game Design

As mobile phones become more common among players of all ages, the popularity of mobile games is also increasing, and players’ experience is of-ten influenced by the explicit and implicit guidance of the game. The use of direct tutorials in modern mainstream mobile games makes the experience less enjoyable. This study aims to conduct a comparative study by building game samples of implicit and explicit versions of game guidance, collecting players’ test data to explore the influence of different levels of guidance on players’ sense of experience, and analyzing and comparing the differences and connections between implicit guidance in game design. The study sup-ports three main findings. First, players prefer implicit guidance because it is fun. Second, different levels of game guidance have significant applicability to other players. For advanced gamers, the tutorial has relatively little im-pact. Third, in the context of complex game teaching, explicit guidance may be more effective.

Ziyi Yu, Fang Liu

Conference Proceedings

Developing a software for the affective image tests using eye tracking technology

The development and implementation of software that consists of digitizing a psychological test, in synchronization with the acquisition of eye biosignals is presented. The test uses 32 affective images from the IAPS and OASIS sets, implemented in the PsychoPy software, allowing the establishment of presentation times for visual stimuli, colors, texts, etc. For the calibration and acquisition of data, such as fixation times, first gaze, saccadic movements, and heat maps, the use of Gazepoint Control and Gazepoint Analysis is necessary. The software was validated by a group of psychologists with a population of 3 children, 3 adolescents, and 4 adults, with a duration of 8 minutes. From the pilot test, a survey was conducted among psychologists, obtaining a score of 9.22 out of 10, resulting in the validation of the software.

Juan Uguña, Juan Pablo Zúñiga, Andrea Barrera, Andrea Argudo, Alexandra Bermeo, Omar Alvarado Cando

Conference Proceedings

Human Driver’s Reasoning on Moral Dilemma of Autonomous Vehicles: Values and Themes

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) can make optimized decisions with its advanced sensors, algorithms, and control even during accidents. The computing capacity of AVs allows the public to rediscover the classic trolley dilemma in the modern context. Consequently, the moral dilemma of AVs has been questioned in preparation of wide use of AVs. This study starts with a view that consequentialism alone cannot be accepted as social morality in the moral dilemma situations. Instead, we focus on the process through which humans choose ethical values and themes. First, “when can AVs face a moral dilemma in real-life traffic accident situations?” Second, “what factors can be considered in AVs moral dilemmas from the driver’s perspective?” Third, “how do the factors play a role in driver’s moral reasoning? How can we understand and explain the reasoning process?” While answering the questions, we aim to present an in-depth explanation of driver’s moral reasoning for AV moral dilemma situations. Moral dilemma vignettes for AVs were designed based on real crash data and in-depth interviews with drivers. With the vignettes, a thought experiment with 33 participants was conducted; think aloud method and open-ended interviews were used to examine participants’ reasoning processes. The data were analyzed using the thematic analysis leveraging graph representation method. Then we discuss the themes of driver’s moral reasoning. We found the codes of driver’s moral values by focusing on the ideas that appear in personal moral dilemmas. The codes were referred to normative ideas, procedural ideas, and actions. Also, we present three themes of driver’s moral reasoning. Theme I, Safety-Oriented Reasoning was derived by driver’s responsibility and empathy on oneself, and was faithful to the safety of oneself and passengers. Theme II, Justice-Oriented Reasoning focused on norms such as minimization of casualties (utilitarian value) and responsibility for fault. Theme III, Situational Reasoning led to different decisions depending on contexts, showing the sub-themes of the other two themes and great impact of guilt. A variety of codes and themes shows the diversity of human driver’s morals in unavoidable vehicle crash situations. Although our experiment was restricted to the Korean population, the result can be extended to cultural comparisons by providing the case of Eastern collectivist culture.The result provides qualitative insight to integrate human morality and intelligent systems. As well as, the results can be used for a qualitative tool for analyzing AVs algorithms of judgment in an emergency by comparing them with human driver’s moral reasoning. Given the difficulty in the cooperation of ethicists and engineers in manufacturing AVs, our results can serve as a communication tool for discussion for developing the algorithms and conveying moral perspectives of lay drivers, who are the potential users of AVs. The opening of such discussion among ethicists and engineers, or other stakeholders including potential users, will benefit social consensus for AV ethics. The results are also expected to help engineers think about the difference between AV-human judgments in the moral dilemma situations, as well as get insights for their algorithms. AV engineers can use our vignettes as representative scenarios of the moral dilemma in real traffic.

Gibbeum Lee, Namwoo Kang, Ji-Hyun Lee

Conference Proceedings

Layout of Direct Input Interface Based on Virtual Space

Immersive virtual environment has the potential to realize natural interaction in users' close interactive space. To explore the efficient layout of direct input interface suitable for hand-eye cooperation in virtual environment, through the freehand clicking experiment, the participants were required to quickly click the random targets in three different spatial depths. The results show that in the visual field of head mounted display (HMD), the depth has a significant impact on the arm movement time and clicking accuracy. It is suggested that the low-frequency and short-term interactive content can be placed in the left and upper right areas of the visual field, and the high-frequency and long-term content can be placed in the central and lower area with low consumption endurance. The down-right area is not suitable for quick click. This paper proposes an efficient direct input interactive layout in virtual space based on spatial dimensions and arm kinematics.

Helu Li, Xiaozhou Zhou

Conference Proceedings

Comparative Analysis of RGB-based Eye-Tracking for Large-Scale Human-Machine Applications

Eye-Tracking (ET) has become an established technology that enables using an individual’s gaze as an input signal to support a variety of applications in the context of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). To this end, sensing devices such as infrared (IR) or standard RGB cameras (e.g., webcams) acquire images of the user’s eyes. Then, image processing algorithms identify the pupils and evaluate their movement in real-time. In infrastructure-based ET, sensors are attached or incorporated into the display of a computer, and they are calibrated to detect the position of the user’s eyes over the surface of the screen. Also, in recent years, wearable ET devices have been introduced to support mobile scenarios. They utilize a set of cameras that simultaneously acquire the user’s eyes and record the observed scene (i.e., user’s point of view). Several systems use ET for user research, market studies, and enhancing input in hands-free contexts. However, prior research showed that IR sensors significantly outperform RGB cameras. As a result, current ET applications require the use of dedicated hardware, which limits the adoption and use of ET technology in the most common applications. Although several research studies focused on democratizing access to ET by improving the speed, accuracy, and reliability of RGB sensors, nowadays there are only a few systems available, and their performance has not been tested extensively. As a result, despite its applicability in a variety of scenarios and the potential of ET in improving HCI tasks, this technology has been integrated into a few applications, only.The goal of our work is to achieve reliable and high-performance ET using standard RGB cameras, to extend the potential user base of ET, and foster the development of large-scale HCI applications that do not require additional and dedicated hardware. In our research, we primarily focused on infrastructure-based ET. We analyzed currently available ET systems based on IR sensors and RGB cameras and we compared their performance with respect to a variety of settings (e.g., camera resolution, light conditions, and noise). In this paper, we present a detailed report of our findings, we describe the main issues and challenges in realizing ET using RGB cameras, and we address their root causes. Moreover, we present the result of a study in which we explored the use of Machine Learning (ML) for improving the accuracy of gaze tracking: we compare the performance of landmark detection algorithms, and we report their limitations in terms of accuracy, reliability, and speed. Furthermore, we introduce a novel ML-based image processing pipeline and calibration routine. Our proposed solution is based on a two-step processing that integrates landmark detection and relative pupil calibration to improve overall accuracy with an optimal trade-off in terms of speed. We present different camera resolution, feature selection, calibration, and training settings that produce results that are comparable to IR sensors. Finally, we describe the advantage of the proposed system and how it can be utilized to deploy robust ET applications that leverage standard RGB cameras instead of requiring dedicated hardware.

Nicholas Caporusso, Trung Cao, Brett Thaman

Conference Proceedings

Simulation of Three-person Cooperation - Effect of Mutual Beliefs on Team Performance

Many human factor studies have explored the cognitive and behavioral factors that affect team performance by verbal protocol analysis and behavioral analysis. However, since the measurements used in these studies focused only on observable and recordable data, there is a fundamental limitation for understanding cognitive mechanisms behind those data. Computer simulation is an alternative method for exploring the cognitive aspects of human factors in team cooperation. In our previous study, therefore we developed an agent-based simulation of team cooperation using a team cognition model based on the concept of mutual beliefs and investigated how mutual beliefs affect better team performance. While the previous study modeled and focused only on a two-person team, the actual team in the real world often consists of three or more people, where more complicated cognitive processes are required than those in two-person cooperation. In this study, we developed an agent-based simulation of three-person team cooperation, employing the extended team cognition model considering mutual beliefs and mental subgrouping. This extended model describes cognitive processes in a team of three or larger with three different layers namely self-cognition, direct belief, and projected belief. We applied this model and simulation to the cooperative diagnosis problem of car failures and observed how a team collaboratively collects information on car parts, shares with other members, and identifies broken car parts. The results showed that the teams could share information effectively and identify the correct failures. The results also suggested that the communication generated by the mutual beliefs worked effectively and enhanced the team performance. We believe that our simulation is a promising method to compensate for the limitations of conventional human factor methods and explore cognitive aspects of team cooperation.

Sumie Cho, Taro Kanno, Kazuo Furuta

Conference Proceedings

Emotional Information Space in Designing AI Technologies

Current and future AI design needs to recognize the intertwined nature of cognition and affect to design more human-like intelligent systems. The majority of current AI design focuses on cognitive information processes and knowledge. However, human action and human-like actions must also consider the emotional aspects of the environment. We present the concept of emotional information space, which incorporates all issues within a certain environment with cognitively appraised affective meanings and the ability to encode these information contents into designing emotionally intelligent technologies.

Johanna Silvennoinen, Pertti Saariluoma

Conference Proceedings

Hybrid Territorial-Artificial Systems. Opportunities in Design for Territories.

Today we move in changing patterns that need to respond quickly to social, cultural and political stimuli. These models are therefore highly flexible and adaptable. At the same time, the people who act at various levels within them have to be just as changeable and adaptable.The fluidity of the context has exponentially expanded the operational and epistemological boundaries of design, which is no longer design of the aesthetic component of mass production but becomes the design for the development of new behaviours, where products/services/systems are designed not to respond to obvious needs but to identify and anticipate latent needs.The intentionality of the design constitutes the condition of the work of genius, while the satisfaction of the need raises the question of the necessity of the work.Anticipation is increasingly at the heart of urgent contemporary debates, from climate change to the economic crisis. This aspect underlines the anticipatory component to which the project, today more than ever, is called upon to respond. As Bernard Cazes has shown, thinking ahead has always been an essential component of human nature. As societies are less confident that tradition can provide effective guidance for the future, anticipatory practices are coming to the forefront in political, organisational and personal life, but also in design practices. While for Viktor Marcolin designing in the present requires a vision of what the future could and should be, we think of possible futures, the futuribles, according to Bertrand de Jouvenel's famous formula, while according to Berger and the French concept of perspective, it refers to 3 aspects: knowledge about the past and the present; imagination and will. In this context, design action becomes the practical link between the past and the 'possible future', and the material and immaterial artefacts it produces make explicit the possibility of existing at the same time as they are realised.The artefacts, in fact, tell the story of the evolution as individuals, as a society and as a species of the human being. There are no epochs, civilisations, societies or economies that are not characterised by the things they have manufactured, be they material or immaterial.Based on these considerations, the work presented starts from a profound analysis of the territory to which it refers and in which it operates, and turns it into a witness to the past and harbinger of the future, working on the identity and image of places as extensions of the identity and image of the people who live there. In essence, the territorial identity is the conclusion of the flow and evolution of the history and culture that inhabit that place. As Carta states, the territory becomes a 'palimpsest' of signs of the past superimposed on one another, erased and rediscovered.Design is a project activity, whether it is a physical or digital product, a strategy or a new business: the knowledge, technical skills, applications and sometimes ethical contents change, but what unites it all is precisely the design activity aimed at creating something that will be produced, known, understood, judged and bought, because of its ability to meet a need, but whose value will lie in the evocative qualities it will be able to express.The research, therefore, intends to demonstrate how the augmented narrative capacity of digital artefacts can be applied to practices of territorial design, with clear effects on the territory itself, in terms of improving the use of places, well-being, environmental, social and economic sustainability, and in terms of enhancing local resources. Through the description of the peculiarities, invariants and know-how sedimented in the hyperlocal of the places examined, the design process has led to the definition of hybrid territory-centred artefacts that demonstrate how it is also possible to increase the accreditation of contexts with a particular historical, cultural and naturalistic value, such as that of the Umbria region, by investigating the relationship between design practice and the digital technology that feeds products, services and systems.Anholt, S. (2010). Places: identity, image and reputation. Palgrave MacMillan, New York.Candy, L. & Edmonds, E.A. (2000). Enhancing creativity with emerging technologies. Communications of the ACM 43(8), 62-65.Carta, M. (1999). L’armatura culturale del territorio. Il patrimonio culturale come matrice di identità e strumento di sviluppo. FrancoAngeli, Milano.Carta, M. (2012). Città aumentate. Dieci gesti-barriera per il futuro. Il margine, Trento.Marcolin, V. (2017). Design, the Future and the Human Spirit. Design Issues, 23 (3), 4-15Norman. D.A. (2011). Vivere con la complessità. Pearson, Torino.Manzini, E. (2015), Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. MIT Press, Cambridge-London.André Boy G. (2017) Human-centered design of complex: An experience-based approach. Des. Sci., vol. 3, e8

Benedetta Terenzi

Conference Proceedings

Balanced HSI for Energy – A System Dynamics Model for Energy Systems

New technologies offer new potentials to tackle everyday challenges, but this has only a chance to become true if technology is intelligently integrated with humans, organizations and environment. A good balance between different stakeholders and tension fields is one of the most challenging research questions of Human Systems Integration. Especially in the field of energy, where huge pulls from en-vironmental and societal demands into different directions meet technological pushes from new energy sources and methods. First, a short introduction to the electricity market in Europe is given. Afterwards, the relations between different systems are modelled into a system of systems, fo-cusing on the electricity offering and electricity demanding systems. Relevant sys-tem qualities are analysed. The paper continues developing the system dynamics model and brings the subsystems into relation with each other. It concludes by testing the system dynamics model with alternative approaches in the transfor-mation of the European energy system.

Marcel Baltzer, Marcel Usai, Frank Flemisch

Conference Proceedings

Effective Application of Cloud Platform in Classroom Online Teaching

In recent years, with China entering the "Internet plus” , China' s distance education has entered a period of profound transformation based on information technology. The rapid rise of online education has brought new opportunities and challenges to the development of educational reform and teaching. Online education, or E-Learning, is a method of content dissemination and rapid learning through the application of information and Internet technologies. " E" stands for electronic learning, efficient learning, explorative learning, experiential learning, extended learning, extensible learning, easy-to-use learning and enhanced learning.In the "Internet plus" era, education and learning are more universal, autonomous and free, online education is a" Internet plus" environment of the pan-network education, emphasizing the full development of modern education technology, especially the advantages of internet technology, and advocating that everyone can learn, always learn and everywhere.In this era of information explosion, access to information through the lnternet is the most convenient way. And no one can talk about the Internet without mentioning the Cloud, its computing power and storage capacity are superior, and its software application power is more diverse, which can let the user take what they want, at any time. This makes the Cloud its own characteristics, which can be summed up in four “V”, the volumn, the velocity, the variety, the veracity.Since the outbreak of the new crown, offline education has been severely affected worldwide. In response to this situation, many countries have launched online education. Cloud Class has emerged and gradually become universal and at present, it has been more and more recognized and popular. Especially after the announcement of the Chinese government' s policy of “double reduction”.It has reduced the burden of schoolwork for primary and middle school students and reduced their participation in out-of-school training institutions.Therefore, China' s application and demand for online education will be more extensive.The use of Cloud Class in education has created an entirely new educational system in which students can browse educational resources at any time using any Internetenabled terminal (such as a mobile phone, tablet computer etc ), thus achieving personalized self-learning, and teachers can use the platform for teaching discussion and teacher-student interaction.But while the rapid rise of online education and the Cloud Class bring great opportunities and convenience to the development of educational reform, there are many shortcomings and challenges such as how to accomplish the teaching goals effectively without self-restraint, how to improve students' knowledge and abilities, how to make and organize online courses for their personal interests and how to transform teachers from traditional communicators and indoctrinators into organisers and facilitators of teaching activities.This paper mainly aims at the background of the popularization of online education, analyzes the current situation of the application of Cloud Classroom at home and abroad. And then compares the function of the existing online education teaching platform software, and probes into the existing problems of cloud teaching. Finally, the article will propose some countermeasures targeting of issues to improve the effective application of the cloud platform, hoping to give some inspiration and reference to the online educators and researchers.

Xuan Meng, Shiwen Hu

Conference Proceedings

Ontologies - Introduction and practical approach to textile engineering

Ontologies and Semantic Web technologies offer great potential for interoperability of production processes, yet they still lack awareness in the textile industry. Successful examples of ontology-based approaches already display benefits but the implementation requires the contribution of knowledge engineers and expert domain knowledge. Currently textile domain experts often lack the informational basis to identify application scenarios. Textile engineering is predominantly characterized by experience-based approaches and tacit knowledge in specialized application domains. Ontologies serve as an approach for the formalization of knowledge in human and machine-readable form. This paper aims to convey ontology-based approaches in textile production technology and delineate additional application fields.Based on the research done by Lipp et al and Brillowski et al, this paper rests on three hypotheses:•Potential fields of application of ontologies in the textile industry are largely unused•This is due to lacking awareness and unclear benefits•Availability of textile domain knowledge and the kind of tacit knowledge make ontology-based approaches particularly complexTo evaluate the penetration of ontologies and their potential applications in textile engineering, existing applications from literature are classified. A narrative review is conducted and application fields are classified based on the suggested by Lipp et al. A comprehensible explanation for the target group of textile practitioners and scientists, a description of central concepts and an explanation with the help of target group oriented analogies are given. Finally, the suitability of the application area is analyzed by matching the requirements, prerequisites and limitations of ontologies with the current and envisioned characteristics of textile knowledge and interoperability industrial cross company cooperation and interoperability.The results show that current examples in textile production are mainly focused on vocabularies for human-readable communication rather than technical interoperability. Examples from manufacturing technology are well suited to be adapted for the field of textile production. This paper presents a basis for decision making on where to apply ontology-based approaches within individual production environments. Limitations are identified in circumstances, where quality-relevant decisions and experienced-based approaches are at play. The benefits of ontologies are delineated, as economic gain is a necessary prerequisite. The need for interdisciplinary cooperation and a growing amount of knowledge to be organized from the field of textile technology, related industries and science disciplines are identified as important challenges that require innovative new approaches. The need for knowledge management to foster interdisciplinary cooperation is the main target for the advancement of ontology technologies. The digitalization of these kinds of resources is the first step in this process and the ontology-based formalization is a useful next step.

Leon Reinsch, Christoph Greb, Thomas Gries

Conference Proceedings

The interface design of Chinese input keyboard applied to eye movement control system

The typing system of eye movement control mainly adopts the layout of QWERTY keyboard, the design of which increases the bimanual alternate operation based on the frequency of letters to relieve fatigue and improve efficiency. Nevertheless, with regard to the eye control operation, such design significantly increases the movement path of the eyes, which in turn hinders the typing efficiency. In view of this, this research firstly makes statistics on the selected Chinese word set and the transition frequency between letters according to Pinyin input method. In an attempt to ensure that users can minimize eye movement while typing, a greedy algorithm is used to generate an irregular letter layout. On the basis of this layout, a new eye-controlled keyboard layout is designed in this research in combination with the principles of interface interaction design and the physiological characteristics of eye movement control. Finally, by virtue of setting the contrasted eye-controlled typing experiment, this research demonstrates that the new eye-controlled keyboard layout presents a certain degree of advantages in input efficiency and relieving user fatigue.

Lei Tang, Yunfei Chen, Ziyue Huang, Qian Chen

Conference Proceedings

A Peer-to-Peer Corpus for Conversational Agents for Long-Distance Relationships

In addition to automated Decision Support Systems, intelligent agents are being increasingly utilized in many different domains to support humans in accomplishing their tasks. Research demonstrated the applicability of virtual agents, with specific regard to conversational agents and chatbots, as an effective system for providing users with support in the form of answers to frequent questions, simplified and more natural interfaces for searching for information, and human-like interaction. Several studies introduced the use of chatbots in the healthcare domain for a variety of tasks: in addition to analyzing their performance in accomplishing the expected goals, research confirmed the effectiveness of conversational agents in creating engaging and positive user experiences. Recently, dedicated chatbots have been introduced for addressing mental health conditions. Several systems have been developed for supporting individuals suffering from mental disorders, in situations of stress and anxiety, or who are reluctant to seek mental health advice. The availability of corpora is crucial for developing and training conversational agents. To this end, dedicated groups on social networks, forums, and online peer support communities are especially useful for acquiring datasets for addressing specific circumstances and issues, improving the design of Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems, and training Machine Learning algorithms. The scientific literature documents repositories and corpora generated by collecting information publicly available on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and other websites.In this paper, we introduce an annotated corpus especially dedicated to supporting couples who are in long-distance relationships. Our work leverages the experience of thousands of individuals who have been separated during the COVID-19 pandemic when the governments of many countries enacted travel restrictions that prevented couples from reuniting and forced them into long-distance relationships. Travel bans, which were introduced in March 2020 and maintained until most of 2021, especially affected thousands of bi-national couples subject to VISA-related restrictions, who experienced a prolonged situation of stress, anxiety, and depression, that impacted their mental health. In our work, we collected publicly available data published on websites and groups dedicated to offering peer-to-peer support to individuals who have been separated from their partners due to COVID-19-related restrictions. Our corpus contains over 16 months of data and more than 3500 posts and their reactions, which provide a rich representation of conversations and interactions that happened in the group and offers insight into peer-support dynamics. In addition to completely anonymizing the corpus, we removed less meaningful content and we produced interaction and engagement statistics for each post, which is especially useful for analyzing the relevance of the content for the community. Furthermore, we annotated the corpus both using machine methods based on NLP models (e.g., BERT) and human classification. Specifically, each entry is associated with sentiment and emotion labels. Although our data refer to situations caused by COVID-19-related travel restrictions, the content of the corpus is applicable to long-distance relationships in general, and it is particularly suitable for realizing research on peer-support as well as for developing new applications, conversational agents, and intelligent systems that can offer psychological and sentimental help to individuals and couples.

Nicholas Caporusso, Naryn Samuel, Devyn Ferman

Conference Proceedings

Optimal Design of Operating Interface in Slidform Paver’s Remote Controller

The slidform paver’s remote controller enables the operator to move around the machine at any time in a manual control mode, thus making the opera-tor acquire a more ideal paving operation vision. Taking GOMACO G+ re-mote as the research object, this research not only systematically analyzes the structure of human-machine interface in G+ remote from the perspective of ergonomics, but also puts forward the corresponding optimization design scheme based on the operation logic and human habits of HCI theory, so as to realize the optimization design concerning the human-computer interface of the slidform paver’s remote controller. Additionally, the subjective evaluation of experts represented by the evaluation of information readability and communication correctness is adopted to evaluate the efficiency of the operation panel before and after optimization. In accordance with the experimental results, it is indicated that the remote control interface have been optimized to a certain extent.

Ziyue Huang, Yunfei Chen, Lei Tang, Qian Chen

Conference Proceedings

Emotion recognition – Validation of a measurement environment based on psychophysiological parameters

Emotions are an essential part of our daily social interaction. They are highly complex processes and can cause different physiological, behavioral, and cognitive changes in individuals. A person for whom it is difficult or impossible to interpret emotions may face major problems in everyday life, e.g., patients with autism spectrum disorders. Understanding emotions is not only of great importance in private social interactions but also in the working environment, e.g., for managers or collaborative work. Initial research aims to positively influence behavior and outcomes of social interactions at work by emotion training. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic limited social interactions drastically. Due to isolation and contact restrictions, it is important to understand the impact on our ability to recognize emotions. Hence, there is a great interest in emotion research, including how emotions can be measured. For this purpose, a measuring environment was implemented that allows to detect a person’s emotional state. The aim of the presented study was to validate the measurement environment by evoking different emotions. As stimulus, affective visual material (EmoPicS) was used to address different emotional poles. To make emotions measurable, a multidimensional approach combining subjective and objective measures according to Boucsein and colleagues was chosen. Therefore, participants rated their emotional state using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) on the three different affective dimensions: valence, arousal, and dominance. Also, facial expression was recorded as subjective measure. The objective psychophysiological measures were electrocardiogram (ECG), electrodermal activity (EDA) and electromyogram on the forearm and neck (EMG). Results prove a successful validation of the measurement environment. Furthermore, first findings show a significant difference regarding the subjective assessment of the affective visual material for the dimension valence. Nevertheless, no significant differences were found in the psychophysiological data for the stimulus material used. Future studies should use stronger stimuli to evoke emotions, e.g., by combining auditory and visual stimuli or using videos.

Ramona Schmid, Linn Braunmiller, Lena Hansen, Christopher Schonert, Knut Möller, Verena Wagner-Hartl

Conference Proceedings

Modular construction cost forecasting design to support continuous construction system improvements

Problem statement. The development of construction projects requires a relatively long period of time, during which, according to historical data, construction costs change significantly even on an annual basis, which significantly affects the commercial opportunities of participants in the construction industry. Sometimes an inaccurate forecast can lead to the liquidation of a company or the suspension of a construction project. Many construction forecasting methods have been developed in recent decades, but their accuracy is fragmented. The latest machine learning methods are not yet able to produce accurate predictable calculations due to the high degree of uncertainty and variability in cost factors in the construction industry.Research aim. To further improve the quality of construction forecasting systems, the aim of the study was to develop and test a new modular prediction model of construction costs dynamics, which can forecast changes in the next 12M as accurately as possible, as well as to provide precise guidelines for five-year forecasts.Research methods used. The combined methodology of the study was developed in 2018 and for 3 years was approbated to assess changes in the costs and volume of the Latvian, EU member state, construction sectors. Each year during the summer period, a forecast was developed, and after a year, the results were compared, and the methodology was adjusted. The methodology is modular - it includes the use of both statistical and expert methods, a combination of methods. In total, more than 200 experts were interviewed over the 3-year survey, while the 2020 phase survey includes the opinions of 59 experts from 56 organizations according to the Quadruple Helix methodological approach. The quantitative data array consists of statistical data blocks by historical changes in the costs and volume of construction sub-sectors.Main results and findings of the study. Based on the improved methodology, the 2020 projections differed from the actual changes in 2020 by 0.4 percentage points in volume and 1.4 percentage points in costs in context where changes over the last decade have fluctuated in double-digit ranges. The results of the study identify high-precision construction cost and volume methodology.Theoretical and practical implications of the work and conclusions. The developed methodology can be applied in practical forecasts of construction costs and volume in both the public and private sectors. The developed methodology can be applied to the improvement of future construction forecasting, including the development of machine learning algorithms. The proposed forecasting method offers a new direction for construction cost forecasting research and will provide construction planners with an additional effective tool to manage the risks associated with construction project costs.

Martins Danusevics, Liga Braslina, Daine Skiltere, Anda Batraga, Girts Braslins

Conference Proceedings

A Physical User Interface Description Language for Interface Digital Twins

Although the American Disability Act defines guidelines and regulations in terms of equitable access for digital and physical products, the accessibility divide between hardware and software technology is increasing. In the last decade, accessibility has received increasing attention in software development and, particularly, smartphone applications and web design. On the contrary, the design of physical products such as home appliances, electronic devices, and vending machines, lacks compliance with most basic accessibility rules, which impacts the quality of life of people with disabilities and, specifically, individuals who are blind or have cognitive conditions. As a result, people with disabilities are unable to independently learn and use several physical products and devices, due to the lack of accessibility of their User Interface (UI).Our previous work introduced the concept of Interface Digital Twin (IDT), that is, the digital replica of a physical UI rendered in the form of an interactive model: IDTs leverage the features of the smartphone (e.g., text-to-speech, vibration, and the possibility of adding more information) to increase the accessibility of the interface of a physical device (e.g., translate visual labels into speech), help individuals understand its components and learn how to operate it (e.g., interactive user manual), and support users in accomplishing their tasks on the actual device (e.g., provide step-by-step guidance). Our research demonstrated that IDTs can be introduced without requiring any modifications to currently available technology, which makes them suitable for enhancing the accessibility of existing devices, especially in the case of individuals with sensory or cognitive disabilities. Furthermore, IDT can be utilized to and digitize the functionality of physical devices. For instance, in the case of a ticket vending machine, the entire process can be realized digitally, using a simplified interface for buying the ticket on the smartphone. By doing this, we aim at rendering physical devices a “physical tag” for digital processes, which would help transition to a more paperless and digital society.In this paper, we detail a Physical User Interface Description Language (PUIDL) that has the purpose of representing the main characteristics of the UI of a physical device into a digital format so that it can be utilized to create IDTs on smartphones and other personal devices. We introduce the language and we highlight the differences between the proposed PUIDL and existing User Interface Description Languages, which are designed to represent software interfaces, only. We detail the main characteristics of the language, we discuss its syntax and notation, and we demonstrate how the our system can be utilized to implement the IDT of an actual physical device. Furthermore, we analyze the effectiveness, modularity, interoperability, and performance of the proposed language in describing physical user interfaces. Finally, we describe how PUIDLs can support the use IDTs for controlling physical devices in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Nicholas Caporusso, Aryan Tandon, Samuel Sungmin Cho, Tewodros Amare, Sarah Neace

Conference Proceedings

Research on Key Elements of UI Design of Image Editing System Based on CSCW

In the post-epidemic era, the application of computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) in graphics and image software has become increasingly urgent. Collaborative image editing software allows users who are geographically dis-tributed in different locations to view and edit the same shared image object through the network. The interaction of the CSCW system includes human-computer interaction and human-to-human interaction, and human-to-human in-teraction expands the time and space of interaction, and also strengthens the freedom of interaction between user groups. The research object of this article is the interactive key elements of the graphics and image software on the mo-bile terminal in the collaborative editing state, that is, the current operating state of the system and related information. By analyzing the interactive ele-ments of collaborative office software and image and image software on the PC and mobile terminals by competing products, the three key elements of in-teractive design in cscw-based graphics and image software are extracted: edi-tor information, selected status, and Information display location. This paper redesigned these three elements to obtain a high-fidelity model of the graphics configuration of the mobile graphics and image software during collaborative editing operations. Through the usability test and QUIS questionnaire, we verified its usability and got good user satisfaction. Finally, the design guide-lines for the optimal interactive graphics configuration of the mobile graphics and image software in the collaborative editing state are obtained. The interac-tive design guidelines proposed in this paper can be used as a design refer-ence for the collaborative editing image software on the mobile terminal.

Qian Chen, Yunfei Chen, Ziyue Huang, Lei Tang

Conference Proceedings

Effect of color brightness change on interface balance

In web design, important text information is placed in the visual center of people, when there is too much information, it will cause the imbalance of interface layout. Color plays an important role in interface balance as a per-ceptive element. This paper introduces the experimental study on the effect of color brightness on interface balance. In this experiment, 11 geometric images were designed to verify the effect of brightness on the balance sub-ject score by changing the brightness properties only. The results of the ex-periment showed that compared with the reference image (50% of bright-ness), male and female subjects gave a score lower than the reference image when the image brightness was less than 50% or higher, and the test image was greater than 50%, and the score decreased linearly with the decrease of the image brightness.

Xia Liu, Yan Zhang

Conference Proceedings

Making wireless charging a reality: A real-world mixed methods evaluation of vehicle alignment

Wireless charging could allow drivers to better manage their vehicle’s range through more frequent, if slower, charging. However, accurate alignment between the vehicle and the ground pad is crucial. 12 participants were asked to align either the front or rear of a wireless-enabled vehicle, with a ground pad; both with and without the support of an in-vehicle alignment HMI. We found that participants were most accurate when front aligning the vehicle. The alignment HMI significantly improved longitudinal alignment in all conditions. However, when front aligning, lateral alignment was not significantly improved by the HMI. Alignment was poorest when the vehicle pad was at the rear of the vehicle. We found that 100% of participants could align accurately enough to begin charging with the aid of the HMI, followed by only 17% for unassisted front aligning and 0% when rear aligning; highlighting the importance of pad location and HMI support.

Arun Ulahannan, Katie Zdanowicz, Cameron Bowie, Stewart Birrell

Conference Proceedings

Building fire risk assessment based on machine learning

In recent years, with the rapid development of economy, the continuous expansion of trading areas and buildings has caused more serious fire risks. In order to reduce the incidence of fire accidents and effectively improve building fire safety management, it is necessary to explore the application of the machine learning (ML) algorithms in fire risk assessment. This study aims to propose a ML framework for building quantitative fire risk assessment and use four regression algorithms with the data set which is collected by the Fire Safety Management System of Social Units in Jiangsu Province to predict fire risk score of each company and the Mean Square Error (MSE) is used to evaluate the models. The final result shows DNN has the best performance in the experiment, which is of great significance to promote the intelligence and accuracy of fire prevention and control in smart city construction.

Aiming Xu, Beibei Sun

Conference Proceedings

New craft design in the digital age

Craft design has gone through different contexts, and the craftsmanship in the new age is different from that in the industrial age. By analyzing the evolution and new scenario of craft design, the paper summarizes the trend of new craft design. The evolution of craft design shows the following trends: 1) the output diversified to satisfy the new needs due to technological advancement, including the material object, experience, service, and digital content. 2) the responsibility shifts from product design to activity design. 3) the boundaries are blurred; more and more industries, disciplines and people are participating in craft design. This paper believes that the new craft design has two directions: one points to the craftsmanship itself (tangible-intermediate-intangible structure); the other points to the various relationships with other disciplines, environment, and society.

Min Zhou, Shuang Liang, Peian Yao, Stefano Follesa

Conference Proceedings

Application of Genetic Algorithm in data Visualization color matching realized by front-end

Aiming at the problems of low efficiency, difficulty in expansion and lack of standardization in the process of realizing data visualization in the front-end, a set of automatic color matching schemes suitable for various chart types is proposed. This method is implemented in combination with Genetic Algorithm. First, a color selection function is used to randomly select colors from qualified color intervals to construct multiple palettes to improve the efficiency of the algorithm. Then, the fitness function is constructed from the two aspects of perceptibility and harmony between colors to judge the quality of the palette, and to screen out the groups that can be inherited to the next generation. Finally, this method is combined with the front-end chart library (ECharts) to apply to the construction of charts with multiple indicators of fire risk indicators, and multi-dimensional surveys of users are carried out. The results show that the chart drawn by this method has higher recognition efficiency and color harmony.

Chuyu You, Beibei Sun

Conference Proceedings

Stress Analysis and Test of the Inner Drum of Cylinder Washing Machine Connected by Flanging Riveting

In order to check the riveting strength of the inner drum of a cylinder washing machine connected by flanging riveting, a finite element analysis model was establish based on ANSYS. Under the worst condition, the inner drum was conducted statics simulation to obtain its stress distribution. Test points were selected in the riveting area for both simulation and experiment. Experimental tests were conducted on three washing machines and the experimental results were compared with the simulation results to verify the simulation results. Finally, the most vulnerable failure positions of the inner drum were obtained.

Ying Liu, Yunfei Chen

Conference Proceedings

Examining the Mechanism of Concentration on Intellectual Works by Simulation Using Cognitive Architecture

In general, it is believed that concentrating on a task increases the performance of intellectual tasks such as office work, and this has been the focus of attention as an index for performance evaluation. Although there have been studies that have attempted to estimate whether or not a person is concentrating based on physiological indicators such as EEG and cerebral blood flow, and behavioral measurements such as facial expressions and posture, there has been no analysis of the mechanism of concentration that focuses on the actual cognitive process. The purpose of this study is to examine the mechanism of human concentration on intellectual tasks from the viewpoint of cognitive processes by reproducing the answering time data of cognitive tasks actually answered by humans with the cognitive architecture ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought--Rational) [1,2]. In this study, we made a model which runs on ACT-R to reproduce the cognitive process of successively answering a cognitive task consisting of multiple questions of constant difficulty [3], which authors have been using for evaluating intellectual concentration. The target cognitive task requires relatively complex processing, such as comparing numbers and the semantic categories of words. Therefore, in the reproduced model on ACT-R, we had to adjust a total of six parameters to fit actual answering time data of humans, including "ease of entry into short-term interruptions," which is related to whether or not the cognitive process proceeds smoothly for smooth answers, and "ease of entry into long-term rest," which is related to whether or not it is difficult to proceed with the task continuously due to fatigue for example. We focused on the characteristic of answering time data based on the shape of the answering time distribution, and used genetic algorithms to search for sub-optimal parameters of the ACT-R model to represent each of the actual answering time data of actual human answers. The number of the target actual answering time data to represent was 60 that different participants answered for 30 minutes and chosen to have various shape characteristics of answering time distributions. By comparing the distributions of the ACT-R parameter values with the features of the actual answering time data, we discussed the cognitive processes that are most closely related to the features of the answer time data. In particular, it was noteworthy that the most influential factor on intellectual work performance was the parameter that represents “ease of getting out of a long rest”.[1] Anderson John Robert: How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe?,Oxford University Press, New York (2007).[2] ACT-R Research Group, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University: ACT-R, http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/ (accessed Oct. 24th, 2021)[3] Kimi Ueda, et.al: Development of a new cognitive task to measure intellectual concentration affected by room environment, The Fifth International Conference on Human- Environment System ICHES2016 Nagoya, 2016.

Kimi Ueda, Ryuhei Sakamoto, Hirotake Ishii, Hiroshi Shimoda, Fumiaki Obayashi, Junya Morita

Conference Proceedings

Numerical simulation and impact test of hand-held vacuum cleaner dust collector

In order to study the dynamic response of the dust collector in the process of free fall, the author used the HYPERMESH/LS-DYNA software to simulate the fall-ing process; set up a drop test platform and used a high-speed camera to record the collision process, and used sensors to obtain parameters such as impact force and acceleration during the fall. Finally, the experimental results are compared with the simulation results. The results show that: (1) The numerical simulation shows the collision process of the dust collector very well, which is very con-sistent with the part disengagement and structural deformation that occurred in the experiment. (2) The impact force and acceleration values obtained by simulation and experiment are relatively close, which also verifies the reliability of the simu-lation. This study evaluated the impact resistance of the dust bucket, which con-tributed to the reduction of product development costs and subsequent structural improvements.

Hao Song, Yan Zhang

Conference Proceedings

A Topic Modeling Approach for Exploring Attraction of Dark Souls Series Reviews on Steam

Millions of players are active on gaming service platforms such as Twitch and Steam every month, but few researchers pay attention to their comments and experience. Among many types of games, hardcore games attract game enthusiasts with highly great difficulty. Hardcore games require players to invest much time to learn, so they have the highest engagement in the game genre. The Dark Souls series has always been a landmark masterpiece in hardcore games. It attracts many hardcore players with its challenging, subversive narrative, rich gameplay, and builds. The analysis of the success of the Dark Souls series is meaningful and inspiring for game developers. Many studies have analyzed the impact of Dark Souls games on player behaviors from a psychological and cultural perspective in current Game Research. However, few studies have investigated the attraction of the Dark Souls series from the players' perspective. Therefore, this research uses a topic model on massive review data of the Dark Soul series on Steam to reveal players' concerns. It aims to explore the charm of the Dark Souls series. The Dark Souls trilogy of three games produced by From Software and are available on Steam. Steam is the most significant worldwide digital distribution platform that offers comprehensive service, including installing and automatically updating games and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud storage, and in-game voice and chat functionality. Since both Dark Souls (DS1) and Dark Souls 3 (DS3) was highly rated in this franchise, this study focuses on the masterpiece of the trilogy: Dark Souls. In the experiment, we collected a new review dataset of the Dark Souls series from Steam, including approximately 100,000 DS3 and 23,000 DS1 reviews up to October 2021. Then we used the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model to categorize reviews from both datasets. Consequently, we uncovered 15 and 14 topics from DS1 and DS3, respectively. Among them, we used 13 topics that appear in both games to find out topics with high frequencies and positive ratings. The results indicate that most game players are concerned with five common topics: "experience", "combat", "character", "item", and "difficulty”, which are related to in-game items and boss fight design. Specifically, these topics appear in both games with a frequency and positive rating of over 10%. We also found stratification on "device" significantly lower than other topics, reflecting the developer's less optimizing game control when DS series were ported. Generally, the analysis results from this research provide high interpretability that can further support other studies in this field.

Yang Yu, Ba Hung Nguyen, Duy Tai Dinh, Fangyu Yu, Tsutomu Fujinami, Van Nam Huynh

Conference Proceedings

The Recovery Effect in Work Efficiency by Temporary Stimulative Airflow

In recent years, research to improve the efficiency of intellectual work by improving the office environment has been pursued and has produced significant results [1]. Among the indoor environments that affect intellectual work, the thermal environment has been the subject of many studies because of its significant impact on intellectual work. Regarding airflow as one of the factors, the DR (DraftRisk) model [2] , which predicts discomfort of airflow in a cool environment, and the PS (Percentage of Satisfied People) model[3], which predicts comfort in a warm environment, have been studied. The psychological effects of airflow properties such as turbulence [4] and fluctuation [5] as well as velocity have also been studied.The purpose of this study is to examine temporary stimulative airflow to effectively recover the efficiency of intellectual work and to confirm its effectiveness. This study uses the efficiency of intellectual work as an indicator of the impact of temporary stimulative airflow.First, based on the results of preliminary experiments, two types of airflow were selected. Next, we conducted an experiment to examine the effects of these airflows. Nine participants in the experiment performed a cognitive task. The work efficiency was measured from their work performance, and the airflow was exposed by detecting a decrease in the arousal level of the participants. To detect the decrease in arousal level during the work, PERCLOS (PERcent of eyelid CLOSureover pupil) [6] was used as a measurement index of arousal level. In addition to the measurement of arousal level by PERCLOS, the activity state was measured by several physiological indices. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was measured as an indicator of brain activity, and electrocardiogram (ECG) and skin potential, which indicate autonomic nerve activity, were measured as indicators of body activity.As a result, six out of nine participants were included in the analysis. Twenty-six airflows were delivered to the six participants. Then, as a result of analyzing before and after exposure to the airflow, we analyzed various indices when work efficiency was recovered by exposure to the proposed airflow.From the results of physiological indices, when PERCLOS exceeded the threshold before the airflow exposure, there was an increase in alpha waves (EEG) indicating rest etc., and a continuous decrease in the LF/HF ratio of the heartbeat indicating sympathetic dominance. In addition, fluctuations in skin potential were observed during the airflow exposure. Furthermore, after the airflow exposure, alpha wave (EEG) dominance was no longer observed, and the LF/HF ratio showed an upward trend. Comparing the measurement results before and after the start of the airflow exposure, the power of alpha wave of EEG increased before the start, but was suppressed after the exposure.In the future, we would like to improve the proposed airflow stimulus in order to sustain the recovery effect of the airflow stimulus, and consider the experimental design to expose the airflow before the arousal level decreases too much. In addition, it is expected that the design of airflow to increase the recovery effect of airflow stimulation would lead to even greater performance recovery effect.[1] Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory: Indoor Air Quality, Scientific Findings Resource Bank, http://www.iaqscience.lbl.gov/ (2021-10-22).[2] P. O. Fanger, N. K. Christensen: Perception of draught in ventilated spaces. Ergonomics, Vol. 12, pp. 215-235 (1986).[3] M. Fountain, E. Arens, R. J. de Dear, F. Bauman, K. Miura: Locally controlled air movement preferred in warm isothermal environments, ASHRAE Trans., Vol.100, pp. 937-952 (1994).[4] E. Mayer: Physical causes for draft: some new findings, ASHRAE Trans., Vol.98, pp. 540-548(1987).[5] S. Tanabe, K. Kimura: Importance of air movement for thermal comfort under hot and humid conditions, ASHRAE Trans., Vol.100, pp.953-969(1994).[6] D. F. Dinges, R. Grace, Perclos: A valid psychophysiological measure of alertness as assessed by psychomotor vigilance, FHWA-MCRT-98-006, US Department of Transportation, Federal highway Administration (1998).

Kyoko Ito, Yuta Tsuji, Hirotake Ishii, Hiroshi Shimoda, Kazuhiro Taniguchi, Fumiaki Obayashi

Conference Proceedings

Investigation of experimental methods for clarifying the mechanism of consensus building

From risk communication for solving social issues such as global warming and nuclear power problems to everyday situations such as deciding where to go out to eat among friends, we are engaged in consensus building on a daily basis. In consensus building, conflicts may occur due to the clash of opinions, sensibility communication is important for such problems. By examining the influence of emotional aspect in consensus building, suggestions on how to achieve amicable consensus building may be obtained. However, methods for observing and analyzing consensus building with high temporal resolution from the viewpoint of emotional aspect have not been established. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the appropriate experimental method for clarifying the consensus formation mechanism. Specifically, through preliminary experiments, we examined: whether the method of measuring emotional aspect is appropriate, and what kind of themes are appropriate for consensus building . With regard to the theme, since it is important to deal with conflicts in actual consensus building, it was especially important that the theme be such that conflicts would occur. Six graduate students participated in the experiment, working in pairs to conduct the experiment in three groups. Consensus building was done twice for each pair. Four consensus-building themes were prepared: (A) Planning to entertain friends from overseas, (B) Devising a way to convince people who distrust science, (C) Devising a motto to promote tourism in Kyoto and (D) Guessing the favorite flower from a woman's profile. These themes were randomly applied to each consensus building. To facilitate later analysis of the content of the dialogue, the text chat tool was used for the consensus-building dialogue. The items to be measured were: satisfaction with the entire discussion up to that point, satisfaction with the other person's statement, and compromise with one's own statement and so on. During the dialogue, the modal for measurement appeared on the screen at regular intervals, and the dialogue could be resumed by responding to it. After the consensus-building was completed, the participants were asked to answer a questionnaire about their impressions of the experiment. Not much conflict was observed in themes (A), (B) and (D). Representative opinions about those themes are as follows: (A) "There was a lot to think about, and I couldn't fully express what I wanted to say", (B) "Too difficult”, and (D) "It was difficult to have my own opinion, so I did not have to give a counterargument". The most conflicts were observed in (C). This may be due to the appropriate level of difficulty and the fact that it was a theme where it was easy to have one's own opinion. In other words, the above factors are considered to be important for the task of observing consensus building. However, some participants mentioned that their thinking was interrupted by the appearance of the modal in the middle of the chat. Therefore, the future task is to devise and implement a measurement method that is less likely to interfere with consensus building.

Mizuki Yamawaki, Yoshiki Sakamoto, Rieko Yamamoto, Kimi Ueda, Hirotake Ishii, Hiroshi Shimoda, Kyoko Ito

Conference Proceedings

Ready, Steady, Go: professionally designed virtual reality physical training sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article analyses a study conducted as part of the VR technology as a tool for remote physical education (PE-VR) project. The main objectives of the study were to thoroughly evaluate 15-minute fitness training sessions and to determine the extent of participants’ motivation to engage in such sessions in virtual reality (VR) environments. The analysis was conducted using of a qualitative data collection technique known as in-depth interviewing, which in each case was preceded by a 15-minute individual fitness training session held in reality with a professional male (subject: male) or female (subject: female) trainer, according to a predetermined plan. We recruited five participants, both male and female, who differed in their experiences of VR and in the intensity of their weekly physical activity. The results demonstrate that individuals who had already experienced VR technology were the most willing to engage in VR training sessions; those who actively participated in physical exercise and had had never experienced VR were the most reluctant. A key perceived advantage of VR training is the presence of trainers, which seemed to motivate the participants strongly. The subjects exhibited no difficulty performing exercises as they were shown by the trainers. To increase motivation to train, it is necessary to: a) explain the reasons for performing specific exercises; b) adjust the order of exercises during training sessions; and c) utilise the capabilities of VR environments. This article presents solutions that serve to enhance the attractiveness of VR fitness training.

Grzegorz Banerski, Katarzyna Abramczuk

Conference Proceedings

Micro-expressions in Animated Agents

The overall goal of our research is to develop a system of intelligent multimodal affective pedagogical agents that are effective for different types of learners (Adamo et al., 2021). While most of the research on pedagogical agents tends to focus on the cognitive aspects of online learning and instruction, this project explores the less-studied role of affective (or emotional) factors. We aim to design believable animated agents that can convey realistic, natural emotions through speech, facial expressions, and body gestures and that can react to the students’ detected emotional states with emotional intelligence. Within the context of this goal, the specific objective of the work reported in the paper was to examine the extent to which the agents’ facial micro-expressions affect students’ perception of the agents’ emotions and their naturalness. Micro-expressions are very brief facial expressions that occur when a person either deliberately or unconsciously conceals an emotion being felt (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). Our assumption is that if the animated agents display facial micro expressions in addition to macro expressions, they will convey higher expressive richness and naturalness to the viewer, as “the agents can possess two emotional streams, one based on interaction with the viewer and the other based on their own internal state, or situation” (Queiroz et al. 2014, p.2).The work reported in the paper involved two studies with human subjects. The objectives of the first study were to examine whether people can recognize micro-expressions (in isolation) in animated agents, and whether there are differences in recognition based on the agent’s visual style (e.g., stylized versus realistic). The objectives of the second study were to investigate whether people can recognize the animated agents’ micro-expressions when integrated with macro-expressions, the extent to which the presence of micro + macro-expressions affect the perceived expressivity and naturalness of the animated agents, the extent to which exaggerating the micro expressions, e.g. increasing the amplitude of the animated facial displacements affects emotion recognition and perceived agent naturalness and emotional expressivity, and whether there are differences based on the agent’s design characteristics. In the first study, 15 participants watched eight micro-expression animations representing four different emotions (happy, sad, fear, surprised). Four animations featured a stylized agent and four a realistic agent. For each animation, subjects were asked to identify the agent’s emotion conveyed by the micro-expression. In the second study, 234 participants watched three sets of eight animation clips (24 clips in total, 12 clips per agent). Four animations for each agent featured the character performing macro-expressions only, four animations for each agent featured the character performing macro- + micro-expressions without exaggeration, and four animations for each agent featured the agent performing macro + micro-expressions with exaggeration. Participants were asked to recognize the true emotion of the agent and rate the emotional expressivity ad naturalness of the agent in each clip using a 5-point Likert scale. We have collected all the data and completed the statistical analysis. Findings and discussion, implications for research and practice, and suggestions for future work will be reported in the full paper. ReferencesAdamo N., Benes, B., Mayer, R., Lei, X., Meyer, Z., & Lawson, A. (2021). Multimodal Affective Pedagogical Agents for Different Types of Learners. In: Russo D., Ahram T., Karwowski W., Di Bucchianico G., Taiar R. (eds) Intelligent Human Systems Integration 2021. IHSI 2021. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 1322. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68017-6_33Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969, February). Nonverbal leakage and clues to deception. Psychiatry, 32(1), 88–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1969.11023575 Queiroz, R. B., Musse, S. R., & Badler, N. I. (2014). Investigating Macroexpressions and Microexpressions in Computer Graphics Animated Faces. Presence, 23(2), 191-208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/

Tianyu Hou, Nicoletta Adamo, Nicholas Villani

Conference Proceedings

The mapping relationship between PERCLOS and work fatigue: a correlation verification experiment based on radial basis function neural network

Work fatigue is one of the main causes of accidents. The main purpose of this article is to discuss the mapping relationship between eyelid closure data and human fatigue at work through confirmatory experiments, and the applicability of composite eye movement parameter analysis based on the random forest neural network model for fatigue detection in specific tasks . A total of 16 subjects were recruited in this experiment. The performance of the subjects was obtained by the improved measurement method of the number of cancellation symbols, and the reaction time of the subjects was obtained by the two-point click reaction time measurement method. The obtained performance and response time data are used to reflect the fatigue degree of the subjects, and the Diskablis eye tracker is used to record the eye movement parameters of the subjects. Finally, it was found that PERCLOS and the two-point click response time had a correlation with fatigue status in time sequence, and there was a more potential relationship between other performance parameters and fatigue. The comprehensive eye movement parameter analysis based on the random forest neural network model has also been confirmed to have high usability in fatigue detection.

Ziyu Yao, Xiaozhou Zhou, Jichen Han, Hao Qin, Hanyang Xu

Conference Proceedings

Feasibility Study of the Implementation of IR Technology for the Recognition of Covid-19 Carriers in Public Places

Identifying COVID-19 carriers has become the first need worldwide, especially in crowded airports, stores, etc. There are systems based on infrared vision that can help recognize one of the most common symptoms of this pandemic disease: body temperature. The study presented here aims to analyze the feasibility of implementing infrared (IR) technology in public places for the effective and efficient recognition of people with symptoms of elevated temperature or fever. As a result, the best solution (IR) was obtained in terms of time, accuracy, and ergonomics, depending on the user. Sampling was also conducted to measure the feasibility, with a sample of approximately 400 users who visited the COVID-19 vaccination center, located at the Salesian University of Guayaquil-Ecuador. A percentage of time and error is presented, using 2 of the most used technologies in the technological market, thermographic technology and thermopile, considering the proposal as very feasible.

Miguel Angel Quiroz Martinez, Daniela Claudett Villalba, Monica Daniela Gomez Rios, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vázquez

Conference Proceedings

Benchmarking of activation functions for breast cancer detection

Breast cancer is a common disease and one of the leading causes of death globally; there are several methods, technologies, algorithms, or functions to detect their presence. The objective is to develop a benchmarking of activation functions in the detection of breast cancer for its selection with the purpose of increasing the effectiveness in the diagnosis of this disease. The research methodology used in this work is observation in scientific articles, experimental in the implementation of the algorithm, quantitative analysis of the results, and a descriptive approach on the activation functions and the results of the algorithm. The results of this work are an implementation of the Activation Functions Sigmoid, ReLu, Swish, Tanh, and Softmax on the Keras framework; and the realization of benchmarking in Google Colab. It was concluded that this work is an opening towards new knowledge to favor the cooperation and cohesion of different actors; it is a way of betting on knowledge, innovation, and achieving dynamism with planning, analysis, and action of the idea to be implemented for an improvement in the field of health; ReLu has higher accuracy with 98.20% and is the first choice for preparing and training neural networks.

Miguel Angel Quiroz Martinez, Ronald Darío Montoya Guillén, Galo Enrique Valverde Landivar, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vázquez

Conference Proceedings

High performance micromixers by 3D printing based on split-and-recombine modules and twisted-architecture microchannel

Micromixers present essential roles in providing homogeneous mixtures in microfluidic systems. As the typical passive micromixers, the split-and-recombine (SAR) micromixer and twisted-architecture micromixer have the advantages of high mixing efficiency and low mixing consumption.To enhance the mixing performance , the twisted-architecture micromixer was optimized and improved by introducing 1 to 4 split-and-recombine modules. All micromixers in this work could be fabricated by LCD 3D printers, a rapid prototyping technology. Combined with mixing experiments and numerical simulation, it is proved that the mixing speed and mixing efficiency of these new micromixers are enhanced greatly. Among these new provided micromixers with a 10 mm mixing distance, the torsional micromixer with 4 split-and-recombine modules has the best mixing efficiency of more than 60% as well as a low mixing cost in the Reynolds number range of 0.1 to 100, which shows a quite good application prospects in the accurate and rapid microfluidic devices.

Yuan Jiang, Yan Zhang

Conference Proceedings

Interactive Learning: Numbers Application Based on Augmented Reality

Children with mental disorders struggle when they are taught with conventional teaching methods and materials. This is especially a major problem in early stages of learning. Since identification of those with special needs is also difficult/challenging in early years.In this study, an interactive numbers-learning application for children with mental disorders and/or preschool children is developed. The tool uses augmented reality activated through a marker to pop-up interactive 3D numbers. With the application children in their early childhood and/or children with mental or learning disabilities are able to direct the camera of their device to a 2-D number on a page (i.e. marker) and revive a 3-D augmented image. The application also speaks out that number. The ultimate goal of the application is to speed up the learning process in an enjoyable manner.

Nigar Tuğbagül Altan, Oğuzkaan Sarıkaya

Conference Proceedings

Probabilistic Approach to Modeling Human Behavior Based on Pupillary Response Control

Currently, researchers are actively working on methods for making decisions based on the results of automated analysis of the sequence of images received from video cameras. The purpose of our work is to develop a probabilistic approach to predicting human behavior based on modeling the pupillary response. The novelty of the research lies in the use of the parameters of the pupillogram obtained in the process of exposure of a person to a stimulus material as a prognostic tool. The likelihood was assessed by empirical frequencies (stimulus material puts a person in a tense state). In total, 40 people took part in the experiments to identify the stress state, including 20 males and 20 females. The average age of the participants was 20 years. All participants in the experiment were volunteers. During the experiment, we measured the change in galvanic skin response (GSR) and pupillary response. The GSR was measured using the "Aktivatiometer 6" hardware and software complex. Pupilary response was monitored using a pupillographic module for registering changes in pupil size. Pupillographic module consists of a special helmet and a digital video camera ZWO ASI120MC. The camcorder has the following main technical characteristics: frame rate - 30 fps, lens with optical zoom 1X-100X, resolution - not less than 600 TVL, signal-to-noise ratio not worse than SNR=40 dB, focusing range - from 20 mm to infinity. The captured video files were dissected and analyzed using the ImageJ software. Preliminary calibration is individual in nature, allows you to take into account the initial psychophysical state of a person. The assessment of the most probable S \ Smed value for calibration stimuli that does not induce a stress state falls within the interval (1± 0,2). A strong correlation was found between GSR and the duration of the increase in pupil size (p=0,7). On the basis of pupillary response modeling, a decision-making algorithm for security systems is proposed.

Oksana Isaeva, Victoria Moshkina, Marina Boronenko, Yura Boronenko

Conference Proceedings

A Hybrid Approach Entropy - TOPSIS for the Selection of Machine Learning Classifiers for Software Defect Prediction

The software is developed with much more complex functionalities to meet user requirements. Therefore, it is more vulnerable and subject to defects during the software development life cycle (SDLC). There are many efforts to avoid and reduce the number of defects, ensure good performance, and achieve defect-free software before releasing it to the market. To minimize the effort and optimize testing using Machine Learning, classifier models can be created to classify and predict which modules of the developed software may or may not be more prone to defects. There is a wide variety of classifier models; however, there is no classifier model that performs better than another in general terms. Various performance metrics can be used using multiple historical data sets to compare and evaluate classifier models. To select the best classifier model, a hybrid approach combining two multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods, Entropy and TOPSIS, is proposed. Entropy is used to calculate the criteria weights, and TOPSIS compares and ranks the alternatives. The results show that the proposed hybrid method can make the distribution of weights more reasonable and the selection of other options more efficient.

Miguel Angel Quiroz Martinez, Eduardo Xavier Moreira Bermello, Wilmer Paul Carrillo Leon, Luis Briones

Conference Proceedings

Unsupervised Machine Learning for Pattern Identification in Occupational Accidents

Creating safe work environment is significant in saving workers’ lives, improving corporates’ social responsibility and sustainable development. Pattern identification in occupational accidents is vital in elaborating efficient safety counter-measures aiming at improving prevention and mitigating outcomes of future incidents. The objective of this study is to identify patterns related to the occurrence of occupational accidents in non-farm agricultural work environments based on workers’ compensation claims data, using latent class clustering method as an un-supervised machine learning modeling approach. The result showed injury profiles and incident dynamics have low, average, and high levels of risks based on the main causes and outcomes of the injuries and the affected body part(s).

Fatemeh Davoudi Kakhki, Steven A Freeman, Gretchen A Mosher

Conference Proceedings

Thermo-mechanical Coupling Analysis of T/R Module Based on HTCC Substrate

With the development of miniaturization and high density of microwave modules, package on package (POP) configuration has been widely used. Ceramic ball grid array (CBGA) solder joints provide effective microwave signal interconnection and mechanical support between high temperature co-fired ceramic (HTCC) substrates. A CBGA solder joints T/R module based on HTCC substrate is introduced in this paper. In the process of reflow sol-dering, the T/R module may fail due to HTCC substrate cracking or CBGA solder joints falling off. Therefore, the finite element thermo-mechanical coupling analysis method is used in this paper to explore the failure causes. Besides, several factors such as HTCC substrate thickness, substrate size, cavity proportion and shell material are selected for orthogonal experimental design to study the effects of the above factors on the warpage and stress of T/R module during reflow soldering, which has certain guiding significance for the production of T/R module.

Bi Zhang, Guoqing Yong, Changming Hu, Yunfei Chen, Yan Zhang

Conference Proceedings

Simulation and Experiment of Hand-held Vacuum Cleaner Host Drop

Based on Hypermesh /LS-dyna, the drop simulation of the handheld vacuum cleaner host was carried out to simulate the phenomenon of part disengagement and structural deformation that may occur during the fall. A drop impact test bench containing three modules including posture control, data acquisition and motion analysis was built to test the impact resistance of the host prototype. The numerical simulation vividly shows the collision process of the handheld vacuum cleaner host, which is consistent with the phenomenon of part disengagement and structural deformation that occurred in the drop impact test. The impact force and acceleration peak values obtained by simulation and experiment are relatively close, which also verifies the reliability of the simulation. The impact resistance of the host was evaluated in this study, which helps reduce product development costs.

Peng Lu, Hao Song, Bi Zhang, Jie Wang, Qingmei Zhu, Yan Zhang

Conference Proceedings

The Automatic Recommendation and Color Testing Method for Lip Gloss Based on Image Recognition

Make-up already became modern day by day, especially a thing of indispensable in female daily life, appropriate make-up look can foil facial features, promote temperament, enhance self-confidence. Lip gloss is the very important part in makeup look. With the continuous development of industrial integration, personalized recommendation of lip gloss for users can improve the consumption experience of users. Based on the investigation and analysis of various factors of makeup, the paper designed a lip gloss automatic recommendation and color testing method based on color temperature recognition of skin color image. In the algorithm design, face skin color recognition is carried out based on convolutional neural network, and then the classifier is used to extract and segment the regions of interest to the face——the lips, and then the lip is colored according to the skin color judgment result. In the paper, experiments were designed to explore users' cognition of the color of lip gloss corresponding to skin color, and experiments were carried out to compare the recognition results of subjects and computers to verify the feasibility of the algorithm designed in this paper.

Jin Liu, Yafeng Niu, Hongrui Zuo, Jiahao Wang, Lang Xiao

Conference Proceedings

The Construction of the Evaluation Index System of Children's Educational Game Learning Accessibility

The quality of children's educational games affects children's cognitive development and skills. Therefore, the construction of educational game evaluation indexes is playing the big role in the development of educational games. In this paper, the initial evaluation indexes of educational game learning accessibility were developed by applying the relevant theories. Then three rounds of expert evaluations were conducted using the Delphi Method, and the initially formulated educational game learning accessibility evaluation indexes were revised and improved according to the experts' suggestions. This paper determines the educational game learning accessibility evaluation indexes including 3 primary indicators, 7 secondary indicators and 26 tertiary indicators. Finally, two-by-two comparison of indicators at each level is conducted to determine the weight of each evaluation indicator by means of analytic hierarchy process. This evaluation index system can facilitate children's parents and teachers to select educational games according to the indexes, and also provide an effective reference basis for the design, improvement and evaluation of children's educational games in the future.

Xueying Yao, Tianyu Zhou, Yafeng Niu

Conference Proceedings