Ana Paula Cláudio

Monitoring and debugging message passing applications with MPVisualizer

MPVisualizer (Message Passing Visualizer) is a tool for the monitoring and debugging of message passing parallel applications with three components: the trace/replay mechanism, the graphical user interface and a central component, called visualization engine. The engine, which plays the main role during the replay phase, builds an object-oriented model of the application. Taking full advantage of inheritance and polymorphism the tool can be adapted to different message passing environments and different graphical environments, and easily reprogrammed to detect specific predicates. The engine is also prepared to recognize race conditions.

Filtering mechanisms for the visualization of geo-referenced information

This paper describes a prototype of a web tool for the visualization of geo-referenced information organized in several categories. The main features that distinguish this tool from others with the same purpose are the inclusion of filtering mechanisms based on semantic criteria and the use of multiple representations with different levels of detail. Filtering mechanisms contribute to reduce the amount of displayed data allowing the generation of intelligible representations. The user selects interactively the categories she/he is interested in. This is a basic filtering mechanism, but besides this, a degree of interest function is used to include semantic criteria. This function quantifies the users interest in order to visualize the most relevant data, suppressing the less relevant data.The definition of multiple representations with different levels of detail enables the reduction of the detail when small scales are being used. In addition less detailed representations are used to present less relevant data.

MPVisualizer: A General Tool to Debug Message Passing Parallel Applications

The paper describes MPVisualizer (Message Passing Visualizer) a general purpose tool for the debugging of message passing parallel applications; its three components are the trace/replay mechanism, the graphical user interface and the central component, called visualization engine. The engine, which plays the main role during the replay phase, can be used with different message passing environments and different graphical environments. This is a major step to make MPVisualizer a general tool. Additionally, the engine is able to recognize potential race conditions and can be easily re-programmed to detect specific predicates.

IVPrototype - an information visualization prototype

IVPrototype is an information visualization prototype for the visualization of both geometrical and non-geometrical data. Our goal is to provide a generic system that automatically generates data visualization and dynamically adapts the interface according to the data in order to control the amount of information displayed. The information is organized in one or several information groups, which aggregate semantically related information. Icons and coloured surfaces are the visual mappings provided. Other features of this prototype are: a data independent architecture; several filtering mechanisms; use of degree of interest functions; automatic selection of icons based on scale factor and semantic criteria.

Virtual environment to treat social anxiety

The aim of our work is to propose a Virtual Reality solution to treat social anxiety, applying cognitive-behavioral therapies, that preserves the sense of immersion without requiring the use of expensive special purpose hardware. We have developed an application, called Virtual Spectators, that creates a simulation taking place in a virtual scenario inhabited by animated virtual humans whose behaviors are dynamically controlled by the therapist. To evaluate the effective usefulness of the tool from the point of view of the therapist, we performed an evaluation of the application with a set of these professionals familiarized with the use of exposure therapy. Their feedback was positive and they were enthusiastic about the possibility of using such a tool to support a session of exposure therapy.

A serious game to prevent bullying and promote empathy

Bullying is a real and serious problem with severe consequences for the young victims of this phenomenon. Serious Games have proven their effectiveness in therapeutic approaches to problems within the Conflict Resolution domain, thereby revealing a potential to be explored in the mitigation of peer violence in and outside the school. This paper presents a Serious Game whose main goal is to promote empathy as a mean to prevent bullying; the rationale for the prevention is that by helping victims and observers of these episodes of violence to practice an attitude/behavior change toward bullying one will be training and increasing those attitudes and behavioral competences for the real bullying situations. The relevance of our proposal is based on the high prevalence of bullying and the lack of demonstrated effectiveness of the current prevention interventions. The game runs on different platforms (smartphone, tablet, PC), provides flexibility in the choice of scenarios and in the game playing role. Players decisions have obvious effects in the subsequent levels of the game. The treatment or intervention resorting to this game may take place at the therapists office or outside, in an independent way. In every game session a data set is recorded for later analysis by the therapist. We also implemented a Back Office application integrated with the game to support the therapist in several monitoring tasks.

A Virtual Reality Solution to Handle Social Anxiety

Anxiety is an increasingly common feeling in our society; it can be very debilitating and, if not properly treated, can evolve to more serious health problems. This paper describes a low-cost Virtual Reality solution to support the treatment of social anxiety, more specifically the anxiety of speaking in front of an audience. Our application involves: i) a simulation that takes place in a virtual auditorium inhabited by animated virtual humans with controllable behaviours; ii) an interface which allows the therapist to control these behaviors and a set of features and events of the simulation, inducing different levels of distress in the patients. The use of Virtual Reality environments for the treatment of phobias emerged in the 90s and usually implies expensive special purpose hardware. Our challenge was to conceive a low-cost solution, easy to install and use for people without expertise in informatics.

Using Expressive and Talkative Virtual Characters in Social Anxiety Disorder Treatment

Social Anxiety affects a significant number of people, limiting their personal and social life. We describe an interactive Virtual Reality approach to the exposure therapy for social anxiety, resorting to virtual characters that exhibit combinations of facial and body expressions controllable in real-time by the therapist. The application described in this paper updates and significantly improves a former version: ameliorating the graphical quality of the virtual characters and providing them with the ability of articulating a set of sentences. The application executes in ordinary computers and it is easily used in counselling and research contexts. Although we have only resorted to free or very low cost 3D models of virtual humans, we adopted strategies to obtain an adequate final quality that we were able to validate with a significant number of observers. Moreover, a set of therapists tested the application and gave positive feedback about its potential effectiveness in Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy.

Visualizing the brain on a mixed reality smartphone application.

Augmented and Virtual Reality approaches are getting more and more advanced and consequently their use in various real world areas is increasing. Medicine is one of the fields in which more practical applications are surfacing, mainly approaches that enable new forms of visualization of data obtained from real patients. Our work focuses on providing a new simple, practical and efficient way to visualize the brain of a patient, both in an Augmented Reality and in a Virtual Reality approach, through a smartphone application.

A serious game-based solution to prevent bullying

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a Serious Game with the main purpose of inducing attitude changes as a way to prevent bullying, in a target audience of young people between 10 and 12 years old. Design/methodology/approach The rationale for prevention is: first, to help victims of these aggressive episodes to acquire or improve competencies in avoiding or dealing with future real bullying situations; and second, to promote empathy toward the victims in bystanders. A back office application complements the game, providing substantial assistance to psychologists while using the game with patients in therapy or in research work. Findings Both components, the game and the back office, were evaluated with volunteers. The user study leads the authors to the conclusion that the current version of the game holds good potential in bullying prevention: the young people that played the game in a continuous time span, at the end of this testing process, have expressed improvements in their bullying prevention strategies. The back office application, a distinctive feature of the solution when compared to other similar bullying prevention solutions, was positively assessed by the psychologists who tested it. Originality/value The game deals with strong social features, such as number of friends and invitations to social events (e.g. a birthday party), to which young people give much importance. Additionally, it offers a variability of scenarios and consequences of actions, taking into account the user’s performance in the game. The main factors that makes the presented solution stand out in comparison with other similar bullying prevention solutions are mainly the following: It includes a back office application to assist therapists with data management features; the role of the player in the game can be chosen according to his own profile; it is possible to play even outside a therapy session (e.g. at home); and it is a portable solution.