E-learning has been the mainstream in the field of education. Nowadays, many children use the game-based learning materials for leaning. However, the difficulty and frustration of the materials usually decrease learners' pleasure and interests. Learners' facial emotions intuitionally respond to their learning condition. Accordingly, the aim of the study is developing the affective interface of the game-based adaptive learning to enhance children's learning motivation. The various difficulty levels of a puzzle game and learning contents are designed to adapt in accordance to the learner's facial emotion which is recognized and classified by Ekam's FACS. Three groups of the elementary school students are recruited to separately participate in the evaluation experiments. One group is for the adaptive game, another for the adaptive learning content, and the other one is the control group for no adaptive learning. Afterword the subjects use the affective usability scale to evaluate the system. The results reveal the game-based learning system could enhance learners' learning motivation and satisfaction. Conclude that the affective interface developed by facial affective computing is proposed to apply on the adaptive learning.
We propose a novel framework for facilitating awareness of people's contactability in a networked environment. Image analysis on periodically captured photo bursts estimates a user's presence and activity levels. A graphical mapping combines these two parameters to represent how contactable the user is. A Visualization conveys the contactability of multiple users to their contacts on the network. An interaction strategy combines the above with the ability to actively seek for awareness of contactability. We describe the current status of implementing this framework, and report intermediate results.
In this paper, we present a review of the latest developments in the Russian speech recognition research. Although the underlying speech technology is mostly language-independent, differences between languages with respect to their structure and grammar have substantial effect on the recognition systems performance. The Russian language has a complicated word formation system, which is characterized by a high degree of inflection and unrigidness of the word order. This greatly reduces the predictive power of the conventional language models and consequently increases the error rate. Current statistical approach to speech recognition requires large amount of both speech and text data. There exist several Russian speech databases and their descriptions are given in this paper. In addition, we describe and compare several speech recognition systems developed in Russia as well as in some other countries. Finally we suggest some promising directions for further research in Russian speech technology.
This paper describes a computer program, a Lesson Material Builder, that is designed to automatically generate editable lesson materials for teaching English to speakers of Japanese. This program has two functions, a) an Exercise Creator, and b) a Vocabulary Quiz Creator. The Exercise Creator automatically creates an editable reading exercise document, from an input text, in which target vocabulary words are highlighted and definitions in Japanese are provided. Taking a reading exercise, of the sort produced by the Exercise Creator, the Vocabulary Quiz Creator can create vocabulary quizzes that require students to match vocabulary words with their definitions.
Alice is an innovative 3d programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation. Many virtual environment (ve) models are available in the Alice 3d environment. We created ve scenes using the Alice 3d ide (integrated development environment). We deploy a beat detector to detect the rhythm of a song, based on pd (Pure Data, a free dataflow programming environment similar to max/msp). It can extract the beat of a song in realtime. Using our Alice--Cve (Collaborative Virtual Environment) Bridge and Pd--Cve Bridge, we can create a communication link between the beat detector and Alice 3d environment. The cve is a Java client--server protocol in which clients connect to session server host via channels, and when clients need to communicate with each other they subscribe to the same channel. The Alice--Cve Bridge allows any device that can connect to the cve server to communicate with Alice without regard for architectural differences. When a song is played, its beat can be detected and data sent to animate objects and avatars. An avatar can dance (admittedly poorly) in the Alice 3d environment while receiving a realtime rhythm data stream from a cve session server. Stage color and other attributes a can also be rhythmically changed according to the beat using the same communication link.
Most towns and regions in Japan produce their own local omiyage, souvenir sweets, made from regional ingredients, which contribute to the identity of the area and its people. As a large city, Tokyo is not considered agriculturally productive, and the entire megacity is represented collectively by one well-known omiyage made of foreign grown ingredients, the Tokyo Banana. This paper identifies the opportunity for the cultivation of fruit within the city in the form of "urban orchards," and considers ways of using location-based social media as a means to both produce and market the products of specific neighbourhoods in Tokyo.
A number of techniques for the direct solution of large systems of linear equations have been developed. Some of them are widely known and used for non-sparse systems of linear equations: LU decomposition and Cholesky decomposition. On the other hand, for sparse matrices, there are different types of algorithms, which decompose a system of linear equations into a number of subsets of the system. However, in the past there is no discussion for algorithms to decompose a large system of linear equations. In this article, we propose an efficient decomposition algorithm to optimize total operation costs using graph theory.
Modern part-of-speech (POS) tagging tools can provide high quality markup for grammatically correct documents, but ungrammatical sentences can be challenging for them. In the present paper we study the problem of POS-tagging for the texts that contain grammatical errors, and show how POS-taggers can be improved for the use in this context. Specifically, we propose to include ungrammatical POS-tagged sentences into the text corpus used to train a tagger (presumably, a tagger is based on a certain variation of machine learning).
Road environment recognition is important for safe and easy driving. Various methods which use monocular imaging are proposed for driving assistance on roads such as highways [7]. These methods use road information such as white lines. However, it is difficult to distinguish the passable area from public roads which include obstacles using the 'density pattern' of a monocular image of a complicated road. In this research, we propose a method to extract the passable area using stereo images. First, road area is presumed using stereo measurement, the principle of epipolar constraint, and Hough transformation. (where, we assumed the road area is plane). This way, the corresponding points that represent the road area in the stereo images are obtained. Second, the parameters of projective transformation are calculated using the corresponding points and transformed into a projective transformation image from the base image (right image). Finally, the passable area is extracted using the difference between the projective transformation image (right image) and the base image (left image).
We present a set of novel user interaction techniques for fast and efficient multimedia querying and retrieval. Three new types of visual queries are proposed for retrieving different types of multimedia. Iconic queries facilitate editorial image retrieval and social multimedia retrieval. Simple sketches on a map form spatial queries for retrieving location-based multimedia. Sketches on an interactive calendar form queries for temporal multimedia retrieval. We also propose an interactive querying strategy that combines multiple search dimensions, to facilitate easier refinement of searches. We outline two applications that use the proposed interaction techniques and querying strategy. The users found these techniques and applications easy to learn and use.
Curvature is a central concept in the mathematical theory of shape [1]. Being one of the most important intrinsic characteristics of shape, curvature measures deviation from flatness. Visualization and analysis of curvature-based shape characteristics are key components of the shape analysis and understanding process. In this study, we deal with such curvature-based surface features as the focal surfaces, skeleton, and ridges and demonstrate their applications in shape analysis and processing.
Table-top computing has been growing in popularity slowly for the last decade and is poised to make in-roads into the consumer market soon, opening up another new market for the games industry. However, before surface computers become widely accepted, there are many questions with respect to sound production and reception for these devices that need to be explored. Here, we describe two experiments that examine sound localization on a horizontal (table-top computer) surface. In the first experiment we collect "ground truth" data regarding physical sound source localization by employing a computer controlled grid of 25 equally spaced loudspeakers. In the second experiment we investigate virtual sound source localization using bilinear interpolation amplitude panning method and a modified quadraphonic loudspeaker configuration whereby four loudspeakers are positioned at each corner of the surface in a manner such that they emanate sound in an "upwards" direction. Obtained results indicate that sound localization of virtual sound sources on a horizontal surface is prone to errors and this is confirmed with our physical sound source "ground truth" data.
We present an improved method for laser-marking and identification of physical objects and their fragments. Machine-readable codes, carrying object type and local positioning information, are inscribed in sub-surface layers of the object, through local damage (marks) induced by nanosecond laser pulses. The introduced approach implements highly stable and consistent physical recording of information in the volume of concerned objects. Through it secure redundant information encoding required for the reliable identification of objects and their parts in heavy duty environments is successfully implemented.
In recent years, some practical and commercial Personal Health Records and some related services such as Google Health [1] and Microsoft HealthVault [2] have been launched. On the other hand, Cloud Computing has matured more and become the major streams to realize a more effective operational environment. However so far, there have been few studies in regards to applying Cloud architecture in the PHR explicitly despite generating volume data. In this paper, we review our trial on the general architecture design by applying the Cloud components for supporting healthcare record areas and clarify the required conditions to realize it.
3D GIS Research and Information System developed by the World Agency of Planetary Monitoring and Earthquake Risk Reduction (WAPMERR) in cooperation with Informap software development department and the Institute of computational mathematics and mathematical geophysics SB RAS for the purposes of reducing risk due to natural and man-maid hazards and for rescue planning after disasters. These goals are achieved by advancing methods of real-time modelling and loss assessment, by estimating the extent of future disasters in scenario mode, by calculating of risks, by characterizing the nature of the building stock in cities at risk, and through monitoring by satellite images. Basic functions of 3D GIS System: • The global-area coverage; • The full three-dimensionality and manipulation with 3D models of buildings; • The possibility for the Earth surface zooming at any point you need; • The digital cartographic base design with the use of satellite images, digital; elevation and bathymetry models; • The possibility for manipulation with the point, raster and vector data layers; • The availability of data analysing and processing plugins; • The software for numerical modelling of geophysical processes and phenomena; • The software for loss assessment from natural and man-made hazards; • The database management system intended for visualization and handling of historical data for hazards.
This paper describes an approach to create web service-based system, that enables end-users to retrieve medical information using wide range of devices: from small hand-held mobile devices to powerful workstations. Server-side part of the service realizes medical image archives management, preprocessing and rendering of these images in the cloud. Main functions of client-side are interaction with the end-user and visualization of rendered information.
During the last two decades postal mail became e-mail, cash transactions became cashless, libraries became digital libraries, learning became e-learning, banking became online banking, news, TV and games became online entertainment. As soon as a computer starts to share the resources available on the web or local network, it immediately becomes vulnerable to attacks or infiltration. To prevent unscrupulous attacks on such systems it is necessary to consolidate confidentiality, integrity and authentication into applications. For many years, we have been experimenting with methods for introducing important concepts related to computer security and improving e-learning and research experiences for upper-level security and information assurance students. To achieve this goal, sequence diagrams which represent the progression of events over time are introduced to our students. This paper describes an e-learning module developed to help students understand secure distributed systems applications using sequence diagrams.
In this paper authors make an attempt to rediscover the function-based music representation. Both for automated and manual music analysis, functional way to represent music has some advantages comparing to widely used approaches based on graph, geometric shapes or event-set models, namely: possibility to represent the structure of the music composition, ability to use proper concepts and terms in regards to the musicology, and good visual expression of the music structure with use of functional flow block diagrams. The formal model of function-based music representation together with an example of constructing a functional basis is introduced. Some music function transformation procedures are described and analyzed.
In this paper, we discuss some ideas and tools for Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) capable of spanning over and integrating a multiplicity of subject fields. Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and pandisciplinary educational content, its presentation in different forms, as well as methods and technologies for its integration in TEL are considered. Tangible interfaces based on digitally enhanced physical objects, including printed documents, that facilitate a new level of content-aware interactivity are introduced and a Tangible TEL (T-TEL) is proposed. With this we attempt to establish a cooperative TEL framework for integrating independently obtained results involving several research projects both at national and international levels and spanning over two continents.
