Joaquin Vila

The gender factor in virtual reality navigation and wayfinding

An area of interest that remains to be more thoroughly investigated is that of human navigation and wayfinding in VR. This study attempted to examine the effect of gender on VR navigation and wayfinding. A tool named virtual reality navigation tool (VRNT) was designed to conduct experiments for this research. Four experiments were conducted to track navigational patterns employed by the subjects while interacting with the 3D-maze environment. As each subject was performing a prescribed task, the VRNT was tracking navigational behavior, specifically, the number of turns taken, time spent and the number and order of rooms traversed. The analysis of the tracking revealed some common navigational behaviors. The study results suggest that the tendency to take left and right turns is influenced by gender; whereas, the time traveled and numbers of rooms visited are not.

Using neural networks to monitor supply chain behaviour

Intelligent agents are expected to play an increasingly important role in Supply Chain Management (SCM) by automating event-tracking, trend-prediction and decision-making functions. In this paper, we proposed a new trend-prediction methodology that recognises behavioural patterns and predicts future performance based on those patterns. We used fuzzy Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) Neural Networks (NNs) to build the patterns and BackPropagation NNs (BPNNs) to make the predictions. We based this methodology on System Dynamics (SD) models, which were used to train the NNs. We believe that our approach could be incorporated easily into a number of software agents. These agents could improve dramatically the capabilities of current dashboard-monitoring systems.

Incorporating WS‐Security into a Web services‐based portal

Software reuse and systems interoperability have been the primary goals of many IT organizations as a means to curb software cost. While there were spots of success over the years, the state of the industry with respect to reuse and interoperability is still lagging. Two main reasons are: lack of standards and security barriers imposed on many software systems. Web service, a self‐describing service that can easily be consumed over the Web, is the latest trend in the industry to address the problems identified above. Based on XML and HTTP, Web services make it possible for involved parties across networks to communicate and produce/consume a service in a uniform manner. This paper describes the incorporation of Web services security (WS‐Security) into a project that integrates Web services into a Web‐based college admission portal system. With the incorporation of WS‐Security, the project showcases how the aforementioned problems together with security issues can be addressed using some of the burgeoning Web services technologies.

Effect of visualization on the decision maker when using analytic hierarchy process

The objective of this research work was to investigate the effect of the inclusion of visual cues in the decision making process when using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). An important aspect of this research was to investigate the sensitivity of consistency as measured by AHP when visual cues were incorporated. An experiment was designed in the application area of Speech Pathology. The research design included the development of a hierarchical representation of the factors; stress, rate, intonation and articulation; involved in the problem of evaluating the intelligibility of speakers and a multimedia application based on the devised hierarchy to support the decision making process. The control group used audio alone while the experimental group used both audio and full motion video to judge the speakers. The statistical analysis of the results show that the inclusion of visual cues significantly improve the consistency of the decision maker for the research problem selected.<<ETX>>

VoiceXML builder: a workbench for investigating voiced-based applications

Currently, the most common interaction with the Web is visual and accomplished through the use of the keyboard or mouse. While sound files can be incorporated as part of the presentation, the user cannot interact with a Web page using speech. This orientation limits the mobility of the user and his interaction with the Web because both hands and eyes must be involved in the task. The use of speech recognition and synthesis will remove this limitation and promises to be the next wave in Web interfaces. Speech technology will promote an increased use of the Web in, as yet, untapped environments in a similar way that cell telephones have promoted the increased use of telephones. One of the limitations to the development of voice systems is the lack of easy-to-use tools for creating spoken dialogue systems, particularly by nonexperts who have no experience with or desire to learn the low level details of speech technology. One of the most promising emerging technologies for solving this problem is VoiceXML. VoiceXML is an XML-based markup language that brings the Web and content delivery together in voice response applications in an easy-to-use manner. This paper describes an editor for creating VoiceXML documents.

Device‐independent Color Correction for Multimedia Applications Using Neural Networks and Abductive Modeling Approaches

Although color has appeal for developers and consumers alike, color reproduction poses a major problem in many computer based applications including multimedia and desktop publishing. The problem arises because of the device-independence of color, and the way each device processes color. Matching the appearance of monitor and print images, and achieving satisfactory results is complex. Not only are there fundamental differences between computer screen (additive) and printers (subtractive), but subtractive color is in general more prone to errors due to dye inadequacies. In order to control the error in porting color, different techniques have been applied. In this paper, the utilization of artificial neural networks as well as abductive modeling approaches to color error reduction are introduced from an RGB (Red Green Blue) color model perspective. Analysis of the results and on-going research issues are discussed.

Read-My-Lips: a multimedia project for the hearing impaired

Read-My-Lips is an interactive multimedia system designed to help instructors teach language and communication skills to the hearing impaired. Read-My-Lips comprises three multimedia instructional modules: Firstly Babel is an expert system able to translate text-to-speech in any language which uses the Latin alphabet. This module helps instructors teach the fine nuances of phonemes. Each phoneme has a unique sound and thus requires a precise positioning of the vocal organs which are displayed on the screen in two different projections: a front view and a profile cross view of a human face in synchronization with the output sounds of the speech synthesizer. Secondly Read & See consists of a series of hypermedia stories and games. The stories are displayed with text and full video motion. New vocabulary within the story is highlighted, so the student may select the words they want to see signed and spoken with the lips using digitized video sequences. The games reinforce the speech-reading of the new vocabulary learned. Thirdly Fingerspelling allows the student to request any word or, number to be fingerspelled.<<ETX>>

Assessing the Impact of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP): A Reading Technique

Currently there is a vast amount of information available on the World Wide Web (WWW). When trying to traverse this space, human reading speed and comprehension are limiting factors. These factors may be affected by poor website design and inconsistent presentation of text styles which can result in screen illegibility and disinterest on the part of the users. Most computer-based reading tools use book metaphors to display information. As designers continue to rely on mechanical-age paradigms, they are often blinded to the potential of the computer to do a task in a better, albeit different, way. The main objective of this research was to investigate the impact of a different reading technique (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation) on reading speed and comprehension.

User interface design for virtual reality: a research tool for tracking navigation

In the rapidly developing area of user interface design (UID), the existing knowledge and understanding of UID serves as a basis for further research and study of factors affecting users as they interact with interfaces that utilize the technology of multimedia, virtual reality and intelligent agents. Navigation is one of the factors that is being investigated to help designers develop user interfaces that are effective and efficient for the users. This paper describes a web-based navigation tool developed to support research into factors that affect navigational decisions in a virtual reality environment. The tool, VR Navigation Research Tool (VRNRT), allows the design and exploration of three-dimensional worlds and provides for navigational tracking. When using VRNRT, the structure of the virtual worlds is confined to 3D mazes. VRNRT enables researchers to customize experiments that allow for testing a subjects navigational and spatial behavior.

A comparison of learning schemes for recommender software agents: a case study in home furniture

Recommender agents will personalise the shopping experience of e-commerce users. In addition, the same technology can be used to support experimentation so that companies can implement systematic market learning methodologies. This paper presents a comparison regarding the relative predictive performance of Backpropagation neural networks, Fuzzy ARTMAP neural networks and Support Vector Machines in implementing recommendation systems based on individual models for electronic commerce. The results show that support vector machines perform better when the training data set is very limited in size. However, supervised neural networks based on minimising errors (i.e., Backpropagation) are able to provide good answers when the training data sets are of a relatively larger size. In addition, supervised neural networks based on forecasting by analogy (i.e., Fuzzy ARTMAP) are also able to exhibit good performance when ensemble schemes are used.