MUCom News

MUCom News Mobile Computing News! http://www.mucom.mobi MUCom project in competition finalists! One of our projects (SoNav) has been nominated as a finalist in the Nokia Mobile Monday series of events which is taking place in Athens, hopefully a chance for us to win a prize!See the event finalists at http://www.momoath.com/2012/01/final-7-for-the-nokia-mobile-app-competition-jan-16-2012-event/and visit our project page at http://www.mucom.mobi/sonav http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php Two new projects for MUCom Two new exciting projects have been approved for MUCom under the Scottish Funding Council Innovation scheme.Our first project is with Partners for Inclusion, a Scottish charity that provide high quality support to individuals with a learning and/or mental health disabilities.The second project is with MMPG Ltd., to investigate a pervasive computing solution for football refereeing and the real-time dissemination of decisions. http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php New Publication! Application of Dimensionality Reduction Techniques for Mobile Social Context We propose the application of a dimensionality reduction algorithm that could provide a breakthrough in the efforts to retrieve and present mobile personal information to the user in context.<a href="publications.php">Go to Publications</a> http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php New Publication! Context Dimensionality Reduction for Mobile Personal Information Access We propose an application of the Fastmap algorithm that could provide a breakthrough in the efforts to present mobile personal information to the user in context, and describe our vision for context-driven interfaces generated by this method that will support the richness of data stored in personal devices.<a href="publications.php">Go to Publications</a> http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php New Publication! Support for Context-Aware Pervasive Computing Environments We propose an adaptation of the Fast- Map dimensionality reduction (DR) algorithm (C. Faloutsos and K.-I. Lin, “FastMap: A Fast Algorithm for Index- ing, Data-Mining, and Visualization of Traditional and Multimedia Datasets,” SIGMOD Record, vol. 24, no. 2, May 1995, pp. 163–174) as a potential solu- tion to the problems of determining appropriate context features to describe information items and determining the weighting of these features in con- text. We believe this can greatly enhance the retrieval of personal information items on mobile devices, as their storage capacity and the variance of interrelated information items (SMS messages, email, pictures, documents, and so on) grows ever larger<a href="publications.php">Go to Publications</a> http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php New Publication! You Never Call... Demoting Unused Contacts on Mobile Phones Using DMTR  Though out their life, people gather contacts on their mobile phones. Some of these are unused contacts – contacts that have not been used for a long time and are less likely to be used in their next calls. These contacts compete for the users' attention and the mobile phone limited screen capacity. To address this problem we developed a prototype contact list interface called DMTR which automatically demotes unused contacts by presenting them in a smaller font at the bottom of the contact list. In phase I of this research we asked our 18 participants to evaluate the duration of time for which which they had not used each of their mobile phone contacts. Results show that 47% of all their contacts were not used for over 6 months or never been used. In phase II we demoted these unused contacts using DMTR and asked our participants to locate contacts that they had recently used with and without the protoype. Results indicate that the use of DMTR reduced both the number of key presses and retrieval time significantly. The majority of participants indicated that it was easier for them to access their contacts using DMTR and that they would like to use it in their next mobile phone. The results provide strong evidence for the demotion principle suggested by the user-subjective approach. <a href="publications.php">Go to Publications</a> http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php New Publication! Using an optical proximity sensor to measure foot clearance during gait: Agreement with motion analysis. Foot clearance is an important measurement variable in understanding trip falls. Current methods for measuring foot clearance are limited by their inability to capture multiple steps and confinement to a laboratory. Given that variation in this parameter is considered a factor in trip falling, it's measurement in the field over multiple steps would be valuable. The development of an optical proximity sensor (OPS) has created the opportunity to collect this type of data. This study aimed to test the validity of an OPS through comparison with a motion capture system. Twenty subjects aged 33 (+/ -10) years, with a height of 174 (+/ -6) cm and a weight of 75(+/ -12) kg, walked at three self selected velocities (preferred, slow, and fast). The OPS was mounted on the shoe of each subject. The motion of the shoe was recorded with a motion analysis system which tracked three markers attached to the shoe and outer casing of the OPS. Both systems were sampled at 50 Hz. The lowest point of the foot during the swing phase was recorded from each system and compared using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). There was excellent agreement between the two systems. ICCs of 0.925 (all speeds), 0.931 (preferred), 0.966 (slow), and 0.889 (fast) were recorded. These results represent a strong agreement between the two systems in measuring the lowest point during swing. The OPS could thus be used instead of a camera system to record foot clearance, opening up opportunities for data collection over long periods of time, in natural settings. These results should be interpreted in context of the young healthy sample.<a href="publications.php">Go to Publications</a> http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php New Publication! Mirrored Motion: Augmenting Reality and Implementing Whole Body Gestural Control using Pervasive Body Motion Capture based on Wireless Sensors    There has been a lot of discussion in recent years around the disappearing computer concept and most of the results of that discussion have been realized in the form of mobile devices and applications. What has got lost a little in this discussion is the moves that have seen the miniaturization of sensors that can be wirelessly attached to places and to humans in order to provide a new type of free flowing interaction. In order to investigate what these new sensors could achieve and at what cost, we implemented a configurable, wearable motion-capture system based on wireless sensor nodes, requiring no special environment to operate in. We discuss the system architecture and discuss the implications and opportunities afforded by it for innovative HCI design. As a practical application of the technology, we describe a prototype implementation of a pervasive, wearable augmented reality (AR) system based on the motion-capture system. The AR application uses body motion to visualize and interact with virtual objects populating AR settings. Body motion is used to implement a whole body gesture-driven interface to manipulate the virtual objects. Gestures are mapped to correspondent behaviours for virtual objects, such as controlling the playback and volume of virtual audio players or displaying a virtual object’s metadata. <a href="publications.php">Go to Publications</a> http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php New Publication! Socio-technical Factors in the Deployment of Participatory Pervasive Systems in Non-Expert Communities This chapter discusses the design and development of an interactive mobile tourist guide system according to the principles of Pervasive Computing laid out by Hansmann (2004 pp. 17-22) and presents solutions to the technical issues encountered in the development of a multi-tiered system that encompasses a wide ecology of devices. The chapter further presents the non-technical issues encountered during a live trial of the system and uses the experience gathered from this deployment to present evidence that Hansmann’s four principles require the addition of a fifth principle, which is defined and based on hedonic values. In our view, the latter are crucial to the successful adoption of mobile and pervasive systems.<a href="publications.php">Go to Publications</a> http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php New Project with Silvers Marine Ltd. - KTP associate required! Silvers Marine UK Ltd is a boatyard offering repair and yard services, primarily to individuals, although a portion or their annual revenue comes from a contract with the RNLI. A fundamental barrier to growth is the information systems currently in use for the support of business processes. In addition to the installation of a modern enterprise ICT infrastructure, which is the main focus of the project, a novel boat yard production control and management system will be implemented. The project will investigate how existing COTS/FOSS enterprise software and emerging technologies can be combined to deliver automated and online stock control, order tracking, sophisticated management reporting and performance analysis tools as well as improved customer experience. MUCom’ involvement in the project is to investigate how Pervasive Computing could add value over the core ICT infrastructure, by providing mobile access to networked computing. One possible outcome is that the system allows in situ preview and sign off of work activities and materials; providing a sense of “location awareness” to stock materials to support identification and tracking and providing everyday objects such as a hull with the ability to remember and share its maintenance history. A key academic challenge for the project will be to provide an effective and usable pervasive solution to key system requirements.Silvers Marine is working with the MUCom Group and the School of Engineering & Computing at GCU to develop and evaluate Pervasive Computing solutions for their business. We are in the process of recruiting for a suitable KTP associate (24 months). For more information, please contact us by email! http://www.mucom.mobi/news.php