Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces Commons^™

Student Understanding And Engagement In A Class Employing Comps Computer Mediated Problem Solving: A First Look, Jung Hee Kim, Michael Glass, Taehee Kim, Kelvin Bryant, Angelica Willis, Ebonie Mcneil, Zachery Thomas

MAICS: The Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference

COMPS computer-mediated group discussion exercises are being added to a second-semester computer programming class. The class is a gateway for computer science and computer engineering students, where many students have difficulty succeeding well enough to proceed in their major. This paper reports on first results of surveys on student experience with the exercises. It also reports on the affective states observed in the discussions that are candidates for analysis of group functioning. As a step toward computer monitoring of the discussions, an experiment in using dialogue features to identify the gender of the participants is described.

A Tool For Staging Mixed-Initiative Dialogs, Joshua W. Buck, Saverio Perugini

MAICS: The Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference

We discuss and demonstrate a tool for prototyping dialog-based systems that, given a high-level specification of a human-computer dialog, stages the dialog for interactive use. The tool enables a dialog designer to evaluate a variety of dialogs without having to program each individual dialog, and serves as a proof-of-concept for our approach to mixed-initiative dialog modeling and implementation from a programming language-based perspective.

Keynote Talk 2: Social And Perceptual Fidelity Of Avatars And Autonomous Agents In Virtual Reality, Benjamin Kunz

MAICS: The Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference

Advances in display, computing and sensor technologies have led to a revival of interest and excitement surrounding immersive virtual reality. Here, on the cusp of the arrival of practical and affordable virtual reality technology, are open questions regarding the factors that contribute to compelling and immersive virtual worlds.

In order for virtual reality to be useful as a tool for use in training, education, communication, research, content-creation and entertainment, we must understand the degree to which the perception of the virtual environment and virtual characters resembles perception of the real world.

Relatedly, virtual reality's utility in these contexts demands evidence …

Exploring Web-Based Visual Interfaces For Searching Research Articles On Digital Library Systems, Maxwell Fowler, Chris Bellis, Chris Perry, Beomjin Kim

MAICS: The Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference

Previous studies that present information archived in digital libraries have used either document meta-data or document content. The current search mechanisms commonly return text-based results that were compiled from the meta-data without reflecting the underlying content. Visual analytics is a possible solution for improving searches by presenting a large amount of information, including document content alongside meta-data, in a limited screen space. This paper introduces a multi-tiered visual interface for searching research articles stored in Digital Library systems. The goals of this system are to allow users to find research papers about their interests in a large work space, to …

Fuzzy Algorithms: Applying Fuzzy Logic To The Golden Ratio Search To Find Solutions Faster, Stephany Coffman-Wolph

MAICS: The Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference

Applying the concept of fuzzy logic (an abstract version of Boolean logic) to well-known algorithms generates an abstract version (i.e., fuzzy algorithm) that often results in computational improvements. Precision may be reduced but counteracted by gaining computational efficiency. The trade-offs (e.g., small increase in space, loss of precision) for a variety of applications are deemed acceptable. The fuzzification of an algorithm can be accomplished using a simple three-step framework. Creating a new fuzzy algorithm goes beyond simply converting the data from raw data into fuzzy data by additionally converting the operators and concepts into their abstract equivalents. This paper demonstrates: …

The Webid Protocol Enhanced With Group Access, Biometrics, And Access Policies, Cory Sabol, William Nick, Maya Earl, Joseph Shelton, Albert Esterline

MAICS: The Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference

The WebID protocol solves the challenge of remembering usernames and passwords. We enhance this protocol in three ways. First, we give it the ability to manage groups of agents and control their access to resources on the Web. Second, we add support for biometric access control to enhance security. Finally, we add support for OWL-based policies that may be federated and result in flexible access control.

Real-Time Unsupervised Clustering, Gabriel Ferrer

MAICS: The Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference

In our research program, we are developing machine learning algorithms to enable a mobile robot to build a compact representation of its environment. This requires the processing of each new input to terminate in constant time. Existing machine learning algorithms are either incapable of meeting this constraint or deliver problematic results. In this paper, we describe a new algorithm for real-time unsupervised clustering, Bounded Self-Organizing Clustering. It executes in constant time for each input, and it produces clusterings that are significantly better than those created by the Self-Organizing Map, its closest competitor, on sensor data acquired from a physically embodied …

Front Matter: Proceedings Of The Maics 2016 Conference, University Of Dayton

Content presented at the MAICS conference

Front matter contains:

• A list of program chairs and committee members
• Foreword to the proceedings by James P. Buckley, conference chair; Saverio Perugini, general chair

Editors: Phu H. Phung, University of Dayton; Ju Shen, University of Dayton; Michael Glass, Valparaiso University

Understanding The Determinants Of Human Computation Game Acceptance: The Effects Of Aesthetic Experience And Output Quality, Xiaohui Wang, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Ee-Peng Lim, Wei Liang Adrian Vu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Purpose: Human computation games (HCGs) that blend gaming with utilitarian purposes are a potentially effective channel for content creation. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the driving factors behind players’ adoption of HCGs through a music video tagging game. The effects of perceived aesthetic experience (PAE) and perceived output quality (POQ) on HCG acceptance are empirically examined. Design/methodology/approach: An integrative structural model is developed to explain how hedonic and utilitarian factors, including PAE and POQ, working with another salient factor – perceived usefulness (PU) – affect the acceptance of HCGs. The structural equation modeling method is used to …

Foreword To Special Section On Graphics Interface 2015, Hao Zhang, Anthony Tang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This special section of the Computers & Graphics (C&G) Journal features expanded versions of five of the top graphics and interactions papers [1–5] that were originally presented at Graphics Interface (GI) 2015, which took place in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, between June 3rd and 5th. GI, sponsored by the Canadian Human–Computer Communications Society, is an annual international conference devoted to computer graphics and human– computer interaction (HCI). With a graphics track and an HCI track having equal weights in the conference, GI offers a unique venue for a meeting of minds working on computer graphics and interactive techniques. GI is …

Cloth - Modeling, Deformation, And Simulation, Thanh Ho

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This project presents the concepts of modeling cloth objects with different materials by using parameters such as mass, stiffness, and damping. This project also introduces deformation and simulation methods to present the movement and interaction of cloth objects. The implementation is developed using C++ for fast processing but the visualization is done by Maya, which is a professional 3D modeling and animation tool.

Opinion Question Answering By Sentiment Clip Localization, Lei Pang, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This article considers multimedia question answering beyond factoid and how-to questions. We are interested in searching videos for answering opinion-oriented questions that are controversial and hotly debated. Examples of questions include "Should Edward Snowden be pardoned?" and "Obamacare-unconstitutional or not?". These questions often invoke emotional response, either positively or negatively, hence are likely to be better answered by videos than texts, due to the vivid display of emotional signals visible through facial expression and speaking tone. Nevertheless, a potential answer of duration 60s may be embedded in a video of 10min, resulting in degraded user experience compared to reading the …

Image Resizing Using Seam Carving, Kristin Rachor

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Image resizing has become more necessary with the increased popularity of cell phones, tablets and other electronic devices with varying screen sizes. This paper presents methods for resizing images and videos while attempting to preserve the important content of that image or video. An algorithm called seam carving can expand or reduce the size of an image while typically maintaining quality and content. Seam carving is not always effective however and there have been recent developments and modifications on this algorithm. This paper presents two advancements on seam carving, one that optimizes image retargeting on images with many repeated objects …

Watertight And 2-Manifold Surface Meshes Using Dual Contouring With Tetrahedral Decomposition Of Grid Cubes, Tanweer Rashid, Sharmin Sultana, Michel A. Audette

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

The Dual Contouring algorithm (DC) is a grid-based process used to generate surface meshes from volumetric data. The advantage of DC is that it can reproduce sharp features by inserting vertices anywhere inside the grid cube, as opposed to the Marching Cubes (MC) algorithm that can insert vertices only on the grid edges. However, DC is unable to guarantee 2-manifold and watertight meshes due to the fact that it produces only one vertex for each grid cube. We present a modified Dual Contouring algorithm that is capable of overcoming this limitation. Our method decomposes an ambiguous grid cube into a …

Learn Piano With Bach: An Adaptive Learning Interface That Adjusts Task Difficulty Based On Brain State, Beste F. Yuksel, Kurt B. Oleson, Lane Harrison, Evan M. Peck, Daniel Afergan, Remco Chang, Robert Jk Jacob

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

We present Brain Automated Chorales (BACh), an adaptive brain-computer system that dynamically increases the levels of difficulty in a musical learning task based on pianists' cognitive workload measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy. As users' cognitive workload fell below a certain threshold, suggesting that they had mastered the material and could handle more cognitive information, BACh automatically increased the difficulty of the learning task. We found that learners played with significantly increased accuracy and speed in the brain-based adaptive task compared to our control condition. Participant feedback indicated that they felt they learned better with BACh and they liked the timings …

Improving Primo Usability And Teachability With Help From The Users, Barbara Valentine, Beth West

Faculty & Staff Publications

In the aftermath of a consortium migration to a shared cloud-based resource management and discovery system, a small college library implemented a web usability test to uncover the kinds of difficulties students had with the new interface. Lessons learned from this study led to targeted changes, which simplified aspects of searching, but also enhanced the librarians’ ability to teach more effectively. The authors discuss the testing methods, results, and teaching opportunities, both realized and potential, which arose from implementing changes.

Food Finder Mobile Application: Reducing Food Wastage And Saving Money Through Mobile Application Technology, Rohana Sosa, Jacob Rein, Jean Coppola

Student and Faculty Research Days

Food Finder is an Android App designed to keep track of the user’s food inventory. Its notable features include, but are not limited to, a barcode scanner, e-mail sharing of data, and being language-neutral. The target audience is universal, with special emphasis on the elderly.

Food Finder was designed to be simple and straightforward to navigate. The user can add items either by keying them in or by scanning the item bar code; items are organized by location, with tabs for refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, as well as a tab for items that they need. The “share” feature allows users …

Revisiting The Futamura Projections: A Diagrammatic Approach, Brandon Williams, Saverio Perugini

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The advent of language implementation tools such as PyPy and Truffle/Graal have reinvigorated and broadened interest in topics related to automatic compiler generation and optimization. Given this broader interest, we revisit the Futamura Projections using a novel diagram scheme. Through these diagrams we emphasize the recurring patterns in the Futamura Projections while addressing their complexity and abstract nature. We anticipate that this approach will improve the accessibility of the Futamura Projections and help foster analysis of those new tools through the lens of partial evaluation.

A Usability And Learnability Case Study Of Glass Flight Deck Interfaces And Pilot Interactions Through Scenario-Based Training, Thomas James De Cino

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

In the aviation industry, digitally produced and presented flight, navigation, and aircraft information is commonly referred to as glass flight decks. Glass flight decks are driven by computer-based subsystems and have long been a part of military and commercial aviation sectors. Over the past 15 years, the General Aviation (GA) sector of the aviation industry has become a recent beneficiary of the rapid advancement of computer-based glass flight deck (GFD) systems.

While providing the GA pilot considerable enhancements in the quality of information about the status and operations of the aircraft, training pilots on the use of glass flight decks …

Patient Portals: Achieving Technology Acceptance And Meaningful Use In Independent Physician-Managed Practices, Kimberly W. Bartholomew

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

As the bulk of medical health records shift from paper-based file systems to electronic formats, the promise of the transformation process called healthcare reform included adding efficiencies to medical practice workflows, lower costs, improved quality of care and most important, and the freeing of patient information from traditional propriety silos. With this incoming largess of protected health information data now viewable through online patient portals, patients can be empowered to become educated and active in their own health care decisions, but only if they have admission to their information. A digital divide currently exists in many medical practices where only …

Stereographic Visualization Of Bose-Einstein Condensate Clouds To Measure The Gravitational Constant, Ed Wesley Wells

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This thesis describes a set of tools that can be used for the rapid design of atom interferometer schemes suitable for measuring Newton's Universal Gravitation constant also known as "Big G". This tool set is especially applicable to Bose--Einstein--condensed systems present in NASA's Cold Atom Laboratory experiment to be deployed to the International Space Station in 2017. These tools include a method of approximating the solutions of the nonlinear Schrödinger or Gross--Pitaevskii equation (GPE) using the Lagrangian Variational Method. They also include a set of software tools for translating the approximate solutions of the GPE into images of the optical …

Dynamically Parallel Camshift: Gpu Accelerated Object Tracking In Digital Video, Matthew J. Perry

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"The CAMSHIFT algorithm is widely used for tracking dynamically sized and positioned objects in real-time applications. In spite of its extensive study on the platform of sequential CPU, its research on massively parallel Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) platform is quite limited. In this work, we designed and implemented two different parallel algorithms for CAMSHIFT using CUDA. The first design performs calculations on the GPU, but requires iterative data transfers back to the host CPU for condition checking, which bottlenecks the entire program. In the second design, we propose an enhanced parallel reduction-based CAMSHIFT using dynamic parallelism to reduce overhead of …

An Optical Character Recognition Engine For Graphical Processing Units, Jeremy Reed

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

This dissertation investigates how to build an optical character recognition engine (OCR) for a graphical processing unit (GPU). I introduce basic concepts for both building an OCR engine and for programming on the GPU. I then describe the SegRec algorithm in detail and discuss my findings.

Personas: A Strategy For More Inclusive And Usable Reproductive Health Tracking Technologies, Anna R. Paul

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In this report, I argue for the inclusion of personas in the development process of technologies that are designed to allow users to collect and track their health information. Personas provide a profile of a user and their needs, goals, and contexts. This tool can help designers to better understand their users, in order to create better, more usable end products. I examine one particular self-tracking technology, smartphone applications that allow users to record information about their menstrual cycles. Many of the most popular period tracking applications available today only meet the needs of a narrow user group, resulting in …

Un Indicator De Incluziune Cu Aplicaţii În Computer Vision, Florentin Smarandache, Ovidiu Ilie Sandru

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

În aceasta lucrare vom prezenta un procedeu de algoritmizare a operatiilor necesare deplasarii automate a unui obiect predefinit dintr-o imagine video data intr-o regiune tinta a acelei imagini, menit a facilita realizarea de aplicatii software specializate in rezolvarea acestui gen de probleme.

An Indicator Of Inclusion With Applications To Computer Vision, Florentin Smarandache, Ovidiu Ilie Sandru

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper we present an algorithmic process of necessary operations for the automatic movement of a predefined object from a video image in the target region of that image, intended to facilitate the implementation of specialized software applications in solving this kind of problems.

A Flexible Pet-Based Wearable Sensor For Arterial Pulse Waveform Measurement, Dan Wang, Dean Krusienski, Zhili Hao

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

In light of the need of health monitoring, the paper presents a flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET)-based wearable sensor for arterial pulse waveform measurement. The sensor encompasses a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microstructure embedded with an electrolyte-enabled 5×1 transducer array, which spans 6mm and has a spatial resolution of 1.5mm. A pulse signal exerts a deflection on the microstructure and is recorded as a resistance change by a transducer at the site of the pulse. An untrained individual can easily align the sensor on a targeted artery with a negligible margin and then acquire the arterial pulse waveform continuously and non-invasively. This sensor …

A Tool-Free Calibration Method For Turntable-Based 3d Scanning Systems, Xufang Pang, Rynson W.H. Lau, Zhan Song, Shengfeng He, Shengfeng He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Turntable-based 3D scanners are popular but require calibration of the turntable axis. Existing methods for turntable calibration typically make use of specially designed tools, such as a chessboard or criterion sphere, which users must manually install and dismount. In this article, the authors propose an automatic method to calibrate the turntable axis without any calibration tools. Given a scan sequence of the input object, they first recover the initial rotation axis from an automatic registration step. Then they apply an iterative procedure to obtain the optimized turntable axis. This iterative procedure alternates between two steps: refining the initial pose of …

Srcmx: A Gui Application For Srcml, Brian Kovacs

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

srcMX is a GUI application that utilizes the srcML command-line tool to convert and display source code using the srcML format. The goal is for srcMX to promote the manipulation and exploration of source code using srcML. I also hope that the user-friendly nature inherent to GUI applications allows srcMX to introduce a larger audience to the many features offered by srcML. The application is written in C++ using the Qt and Qt Quick frameworks.

From Fantasy To Virtual Reality: An Exploration Of Modeling, Rigging And Animating Characters For Video Games, Sarah K. Williams

Senior Independent Study Theses

In the last few decades video games have quickly become one of the most popular forms of entertainment around the world. This can be linked to the improvement of computer systems and graphics which now allow for authentic and highly detailed computer generated characters. This project examines how these characters are modeled and developed. The examination of game characters entails a brief history of video games and their aesthetics. The foundations of character design are discussed and 3D modeling of a character is explored in detail. Finally, rigging or skeleton placement is investigated in order to animate the characters designed …