George E. Raptis

Differences of Field Dependent/Independent Gamers on Cultural Heritage Playing: Preliminary Findings of an Eye–Tracking Study

Based on a large number of different cognitive theories on information processing procedure, suggesting that individuals have different approaches in the way they forage, retrieve, process, store and recall information, this paper investigates the effect of field dependence/independence with regards to visual attention of gamers in the context of a cultural heritage game. Gaze data were collected and analysed from fourteen participants, who were classified as field dependent or independent according to Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), a cognitive style elicitation instrument. The collected data were analysed quantitatively to examine visual attention in terms of fixation count and fixation impact. The results revealed statistically significant differences in both fixation count and fixation impact towards interactive game elements. Statistically significant differences were also measured for specific types of game elements. Findings are expected to provide insights for designers and researchers aiming to design more user–centric cultural heritage games.

Towards a Cognition-Centered Personalization Framework for Cultural-Heritage Content

Comprehension of visual content is linked with the visitors experience within cultural heritage contexts. Considering the diversity of visitors towards human cognition, in this paper, we aim to investigate whether cognitive characteristics are associated with the comprehension of cultural-heritage visual content. We conducted a small-scale eye-tracking study in which people with different visual working memory capacity participated in a gallery tour and then they were assessed towards exhibit comprehension. The analysis of the results revealed that people with low visual working memory faced difficulties in comprehending the content of the gallery paintings. In this respect, we propose a cognition-centered cultural heritage framework, aiming to provide personalized experiences to visitors and help them improve the content comprehension.

Monitoring, Tracking, and Recording Pancreas-Related Health Issues in Real Time

The monitoring of pancreas-related health issues in real-time and outside the medical room is a challenge in the wide e-health domain. This paper introduces WHEAMO, a novel e-health platform which employs medical implants (biosensors), which function as antennas, planted in the pancreas. WHEAMO uses wireless in-body propagation to track, monitor, and record critical parameters, such as glucose. The signal reaches the skin and then it is propagated in an indoor environment (e.g., medical room) over to a terminal equipped with adaptive, user-configurable, and intelligent mechanisms which provide personalized recommendations to varying WHEAMO users (e.g., medical personnel, health care workers, patients). The personalized nature of the provided recommendations is based on patients unique characteristics via a sophisticated knowledge-base. The fundamentals of in-body and on-body wireless propagation and channel characterization have been studied in a series of published works. Researchers have tested both electric-field (dipole) and magnetic-field (patch, loop) antennas. Another important aspect concerns the frequency band in which the signal propagation will occur. Among the frequencies that have gathered scientific and academic interest are the Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS) band at 402-405 MHz, the 900 MHz channel and the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio band at 2.45 GHz.

VirDO: A Virtual Workspace for Research Documents

We report the design of a system which integrates a suite of tools to allow scholars to manage related documents in their personal digital stores. VirDO provides a virtual workspace in which pdfs can be placed and displayed, and which allows these documents to be manipulated in various ways that prior literature suggests to be useful. Particularly noteworthy are the various maps that support users in uncovering the inter-relations among documents in the workspace, including citation relations and flexible user-defined tags. Early evaluation of the system was positive: especially promising was the increasing use of maps by two participants who used VirDO for their own research over a period of a week, as well as the extensive use by all participants of sticky notes.