Konstantinos Votis

Can a Virtual Reality Cognitive Training Application Fulfill a Dual Role? Using the Virtual Supermarket Cognitive Training Application as a Screening Tool for Mild Cognitive Impairment

BACKGROUND Recent research advocates the potential of virtual reality (VR) applications in assessing cognitive functions highlighting the possibility of using a VR application for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) screening. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to investigate whether a VR cognitive training application, the virtual supermarket (VSM), can be used as a screening tool for MCI. METHODS Two groups, one of healthy older adults (n = 21) and one of MCI patients (n = 34), were recruited from day centers for cognitive disorders and administered the VSM and a neuropsychological test battery. The performance of the two groups in the VSM was compared and correlated with performance in established neuropsychological tests. At the same time, the effectiveness of a combination of traditional neuropsychological tests and the VSM was examined. RESULTS VSM displayed a correct classification rate (CCR) of 87.30% when differentiating between MCI patients and healthy older adults, while it was unable to differentiate between MCI subtypes. At the same time, the VSM correlates with various established neuropsychological tests. A limited number of tests were able to improve the CCR of the VSM when combined with the VSM for screening purposes. DISCUSSION VSM appears to be a valid method of screening for MCI in an older adult population though it cannot be used for MCI subtype assessment. VSMs concurrent validity is supported by the large number of correlations between the VSM and established tests. It is considered a robust test on its own as the inclusion of other tests failed to improve its CCR significantly.

Open Touch/Sound Maps: A system to convey street data through haptic and auditory feedback

Abstract The use of spatial (geographic) information is becoming ever more central and pervasive in today’s internet society but the most of it is currently inaccessible to visually impaired users. However, access in visual maps is severely restricted to visually impaired and people with blindness, due to their inability to interpret graphical information. Thus, alternative ways of a map’s presentation have to be explored, in order to enforce the accessibility of maps. Multiple types of sensory perception like touch and hearing may work as a substitute of vision for the exploration of maps. The use of multimodal virtual environments seems to be a promising alternative for people with visual impairments. The present paper introduces a tool for automatic multimodal map generation having haptic and audio feedback using OpenStreetMap data. For a desired map area, an elevation map is being automatically generated and can be explored by touch, using a haptic device. A sonification and a text-to-speech (TTS) mechanism provide also audio navigation information during the haptic exploration of the map.

A Semantic Accessibility Assessment Environment for Design and Development for the Web

The Web is now increasingly being accessed by many people with disabilities. Thus, the great heterogeneity of Web application technologies as well as the provided Web content requires the introduction of accessibility aspects in order to fulfill the preferences for all people with disabilities or not. For that reason accessibility support at all stages of the design and development process of Web applications should be a solution that appears in the horizon. New developed Web applications should be fully adapted to different user needs, and totally accessible regardless of the specific condition of end users. Our approach introduces an advanced semantic accessibility assessment environment which initializes semantic models representing the most of main accessibility constrains and terms which are required for the design and development of Web applications, through the use of generic and domain ontologies. The proposed assessment environment can be used for the accessibility assessment of Web applications during the design and development phase.

HapticRiaMaps: towards interactive exploration of web world maps for the visually impaired

Existing information on the Web and especially maps are graphically-orientated and in most cases visually impaired users have very restricted access and find it difficult to recognize this kind of visual representation. For visually impaired people and especially for blind users alternative information presentation ways must be found, which would replace visual information. We investigate the potential role of haptics in augmenting the visualization of maps exist on the Web. HapticRiaMaps is a free open source web application enforces the accessibility of maps for the visually impaired users. Issues of multimodal interaction, relevant sonifications, and haptic technologies enable efficient map exploration of preferable and well known 2D maps (retrieves maps from OpenStreetMap web application).

A Multilayer Ontology Scheme for Integrated Searching in Distributed Hypermedia

The wealth and diversity of information available in the internet or local hyper-media corpora has increased while our ability to search and retrieve relevant information is being reduced. Searching in distributed hypermedia has received increased attention by the scientific community in the past few years where integration solutions which rely on semantics are considered as efficient. In this paper we propose a new scheme for integrated searching in distributed hypermedia sources using a multi-layer ontology. Searching tasks are carried out in the metadata level, where information concerning hypermedia objects is published, managed and stored in the form of a scalable description of knowledge domains

An integrated semantic framework supporting universal accessibility to ICT

As we are moving rapidly to a digital economy, accessing and effectively using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in everyday life is widely recognized as an important requirement. However, the accessibility technologies that we have up to date are meeting the needs of only some, at a very high cost and, as a consequence, accessible ICT for all people still remains a major research and development goal. This work presents an integrated ontological framework for the semantic representation of terms and concepts (i.e., related to user needs and preferences (N&P) with respect to ICT use, as well as solutions, platforms and devices) that are required for addressing the universal accessibility in the scope of the Cloud4all project and the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII). Cloud4all aims at advancing and building upon the concept of GPII through the development of the necessary tools and models for making ICT accessible for all by exploiting the cloud computing paradigm. The main goal of the proposed framework lays in the separation between generalized accessibility concepts, user interaction mechanisms and N&P with the particular details of different ICT artifacts. Thus, the framework aims at integrating concepts related with user N&P, as well as ICT solutions, platforms, devices and their customizable settings along with information concerning their vendors or implementers, in order to (a) offer the necessary expressiveness for defining/representing personal N&P across applications, platforms and devices, (b) link N&P with the conditions/context according to which these shall be applicable for (e.g., considering the user activity and the physical environment), (c) link interaction requirements (originated from user characteristics) with N&P and (d) support the Cloud4all matchmaking process through the mapping between N&P and application-specific settings based on semantic rules and automatic reasoning techniques.

WaaT: personalised web accessibility evaluation tool

Our approach introduces an advanced and new personalized Web accessibility evaluation methodology, allowing for Web content accessibility evaluation regarding different selectable disability profiles (impairments, personas) as well as Assistive technologies and devices. We define an evaluation approach based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 and the Barrier Walkthrough, with the goal of providing support to Web developers and designers to conduct rapid, yet specialized, accessibility assessments focused on different disability types and user preferences for Web applications.

3D HapticWebBrowser: towards universal web navigation for the visually impaired

When viewed at a macroscopic scale, an interesting emergent property of the Web is that it constantly evolves towards being the most important entry point for information production and consumption by everyone. This purpose is defeated right if a single user with a disability cannot access a given piece of information on the Web. However, information on the Web is graphically-orientated and in most cases visually impaired users have very restricted access and find it difficult to recognize this kind of visual representation. For visually impaired people and especially for blind users alternative information presentation ways must be found, which would replace visual information. 3D HapticWebBrowser, is a free open source web browser to address the problems of visually impaired in accessing the Web. Issues of multimodal interaction and haptic technologies enable universal navigation of web pages and efficient map exploration of preferable 2D maps.

Application service provision through the grid: business models and architectures

The new economy is the result of the information revolution that promotes the emergence of networked, ubiquitous and collaborative service provision. Furthermore, the globalisation of trade has increased the number of competitors, driving the need for federated and networked business models. In this paper we argue that next generation ASP models could benefit from the use of the grid. We describe a grid-enabled architecture for coordinated resource sharing and problem solving in dynamic, multi-institutional ASP vendors.

Accessibility through Preferences: Context-Aware Recommender of Settings

A proposal for merging context-awareness and user preferences in the same software system is provided. Several modules from the on-going CLOUD4All project (European Commission Seventh Framework Programme) are enhanced with Context Awareness, including the Semantic Matching Framework, the RuleBased Matchmaker (with new rules) and the Statistical Matchmaker (with new features to be used as predictors). Some other components are created exclusively to deal with context features, as the Context Aware Server (to add context from motes) and the Minimatchmaker (to save computation and network resources for well-known situations)