Linear mixed-effects models (LMMs) are increasingly being used for data analysis in cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology, where within-participant designs are common. The current article provides an introductory review of the use of LMMs for within-participant data analysis and describes a free, simple, graphical user interface (LMMgui). LMMgui uses the package lme4 (Bates et al., 2014a, b ) in the statistical environment R (R Core Team).

Legal contracts and litigation documents common to the American legal system were encoded in the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). XML also represents rules about the contracts and litigation procedure. In addition to an expert system tool that allows one to make inferences with that engine, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) generates the XML representing the rules. A rulebase is developed by marking up examples of the XML to be interpreted and the XML to be generated, analogously to (...) Query By Example. This article provides a broader context of the synergy between XML and artificial intelligence by including discussions of: (1) the role of Artificial Intelligence in handling routine litigation; (2) how the use of XML enables legal expert systems to get their `input' without the user having to enter the same information again for the expert system;(3) the advantages of XML markup over other forms of markup for documents; (4) the relationship between XML and ontologies; (5) other projects using XML with rules or legal affairs. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Real-time graphical interval logic is a modal logic for reasoning about time in which the basic modality is the interval. The logic differs from other logics in that it has a natural intuitive graphical representation that resembles the timing diagrams drawn by system designers. We have developed an automted deduction system for the logic, which includes a theorem prover and a user interface. The theorem prover checks the validity of proofs in the logic and produces (...) counterexamples to invalid proofs. The user interface includes a graphical editor that enables the user to create graphical formulas on a workstation display, and a database and proof manager that tracks proof dependencies and allows graphical formulas to be stored and retrieved. In this paper we describe the logic, the automated deduction system, and an application to robotics. (shrink)

Smart homes create a beneficial environment for the lives of elderly people and enhance the quality of their home lives. This study aims to explore the design of age-friendly interfaces that can meet the emotional needs of self-care elderly people from the perspective of functional realization of the operating interface. Sixteen elderly users aged fifty-five and above were selected as subjects with healthy eyes and no excessive drooping eyelids to obscure them. Four representative age-friendly applications with different interface (...) designs were selected from the Android application market as the stimulus material for the experiment, and a total of fifteen pages were browsed independently. During the experiment, the ErgoLAB human-computer environment synchronization cloud platform was used to monitor and record the subjects' multidimensional physiological indicators of eye movements, skin electricity, and heart rate variability when using different styles of mobile application interfaces. Combined with the post-experimental PAD emotion scale data, the preferences of emotional interface design elements of the self-care elderly were analyzed to guide the subsequent design practice. The results show that: on the layout characteristics of the home page, a simple and intuitive multi-column layout or card layout combined with a bottom navigation bar type main navigation is used; on the choice of the main color, a single color with low saturation is used as the main color, with high saturation color accents to play a role in highlighting key information; on the information density of the home page, a moderate proportion of graphics and text is adopted, with low information density; on the arrangement of the page content, they try to give priority to information content with high user relevance. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show how both the presentation and limitation of visual choices in massively multiplayer online role‐playing games (MMORPG) avatar creation interfaces tends to exclude or favor different real life social groups.Design/methodology/approachA novel method combining both quantitative and critical analysis of the syntagmatic‐paradigmatic structure of MMORPG avatar creation interfaces is used to inform the findings of this study.FindingsThis study concludes that as cultural interfaces, current fantasy themed MMORPGs remediate socially exclusive values both from fantasy literature (...) and from their own game lore. The socially exclusive values deal largely with extreme and immutable racial and sexual dimorphism.Research limitations/implicationsInterfaces which present users with color palettes and/or smooth slider‐based body modifiers do not lend themselves well to this method of analysis. In addition to this, only a handful of the popular MMORPGs are analyzed within the body of this work.Practical implicationsThis paper demonstrates that MMORPG players and designers need to be more aware about how they are constructing and embedding social values in their worlds. Avatars are critical conduits for online social dynamics and embedding socially exclusive values may transfer negative ideologies from old media to new.Originality/valueThis paper offers one of the earliest critiques of embedded values in avatar creation interfaces of MMORPGs. The paper aims to begin discussion on an overlooked area of now popular media that has not received any critical attention regarding its embedded messages of social inclusiveness or exclusiveness. (shrink)

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for advanced Parkinson’s disease. However, identifying stimulation parameters, such as contact and current amplitudes, is time-consuming based on trial and error. Directional leads add more stimulation options and render this process more challenging with a higher workload for neurologists and more discomfort for patients. In this study, a sweet spot-guided algorithm was developed that automatically suggested stimulation parameters. These suggestions were retrospectively compared to clinical monopolar reviews. A cohort of 24 Parkinson’s disease (...) patients underwent bilateral DBS implantation in the subthalamic nucleus at our center. First, the DBS’ leads were reconstructed with the open-source toolbox Lead-DBS. Second, a sweet spot for rigidity reduction was set as the desired stimulation target for programming. This sweet spot and estimations of the volume of tissue activated were used to suggest (i) the best lead level, (ii) the best contact, and (iii) the effect thresholds for full therapeutic effect for each contact. To assess these sweet spot-guided suggestions, the clinical monopolar reviews were considered as ground truth. In addition, the sweet spot-guided suggestions for best lead level and best contact were compared against reconstruction-guided suggestions, which considered the lead location with respect to the subthalamic nucleus. Finally, a graphical user interface was developed as an add-on to Lead-DBS and is publicly available. With the interface, suggestions for all contacts of a lead can be generated in a few seconds. The accuracy for suggesting the best out of four lead levels was 56%. These sweet spot-guided suggestions were not significantly better than reconstruction-guided suggestions (p = 0.3). The accuracy for suggesting the best out of eight contacts was 41%. These sweet spot-guided suggestions were significantly better than reconstruction-guided suggestions (p < 0.001). The sweet spot-guided suggestions of each contact’s effect threshold had a mean error of 1.2 mA. On an individual lead level, the suggestions can vary more with mean errors ranging from 0.3 to 4.8 mA. Further analysis is warranted to improve the sweet spot-guided suggestions and to account for more symptoms and stimulation-induced side effects. (shrink)

On several occasions Michel Foucault advocated a methodological turn towards what he called a ‘happy positivism’. Foucault’s emphasis on the surface does not deny the importance of structures of hiding, but understands it as a game in which the structures of hiding are viewed as contingently given. In this paper, I will analyse the conflict between the hacker movement and the field of corporate interests. I argue that the introduction of graphical user interfaces and the maintaining of copyright (...) interests are the contingent background of the ongoing conflict. By bracketing the analyses of hidden intentional structures, the happy positivist is thus able to facilitate deeper understandings of the prevailing structures of hiding. (shrink)

Computer technology has become an integral part of daily life. From online banking and shopping to email and instant messaging, cyberspace is increasingly woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. The mouse, the monitor and keyboard are all a part of the interfacing devices that over time become extensions of our bodies as we “surf” through graphical user interfaces. Icons patterned together in a mosaic on our screens link to infinite possibilities. We can visit museums, chat with (...) family and friends around the world, not to mention shop to have virtually anything we want shipped to our door. What happens to notions of infinity and transcendence when they are conflated with cyberspatial matrices? Does cyberspatial disembodiment allow us to transcend ourselves or does it blind us from the notion that transcendence in a box is not transcendence at all? (shrink)

Ns2 is an open-source communications network simulator primarily used in research and teaching. Ns2 provides substantial support for simulation of TCP, routing, and multicast protocols over wired and wireless networks. Although Ns2 is a widely used powerful simulator, it lacks a way to measure networks that are used to assess reliability and performance metrics and it does not analyse the trace files it produces. The data obtained from the simulations are not straightforward to analyse. Ns2 is still unable to provide (...) any data analysis statistics or graphics as requested. Moreover, the analysis of the Ns2 trace file using any software scripts requires further steps by a developer to do data processing and then produce graphical outputs. Lack of standardisation of tools means that results from different users may not be strictly comparable. There are alternative tools; however, most of them are not standalone applications, requiring some additional libraries. Also, they lack a user-friendly interface. This article presents the architecture and development considerations for the NsGTFA tool, which intends to simplify the management and enable the statistical analysis of trace files generated during network simulations. NsGTFA runs under Windows and has a friendly graphical user interface. This tool is a very fast standalone application implemented in VC++, taking as input an Ns2 trace file. It can output two-dimensional and 3D graphs or data sets, whatever the trace file format. It is also possible to specify the output of standard network performance metrics. NsGTFA satisfies most user needs. There is no complex installation process, and no external libraries are needed. (shrink)

Brain structural covariance network can delineate the brain synchronized alterations in a long-range time period. It has been used in the research of cognition or neuropsychiatric disorders. Recently, causal analysis of structural covariance network, winner-take-all and cortex–subcortex covariance network, and modulation analysis of structural covariance network have expended the technology breadth of SCN. However, the lack of user-friendly software limited the further application of SCN for the research. In this work, we developed the graphical user interface (...) toolkit of brain structural covariance connectivity based on MATLAB platform. The software contained the analysis of SCN, CaSCN, MOD-SCN, and WTA-CSSCN. Also, the group comparison and result-showing modules were included in the software. Furthermore, a simple showing of demo dataset was presented in the work. We hope that the toolkit could help the researchers, especially clinical researchers, to do the brain covariance connectivity analysis in further work more easily. (shrink)

This article focuses on the pendulum-like change in the way people read and use text, which was triggered by the introduction of new reading and writing technologies in human history. The paper argues that textual features, which characterized the ancient pre-print writing culture, disappeared with the establishment of the modern-day print culture and has been “revived” in the digital post-modern era. This claim is based on the analysis of four cases which demonstrate this textual-pendulum swing: (1) The swing from concrete (...) iconic-graphic representation of letters and words in the ancient alphabet to abstract phonetic representation of text in modern eras, and from written abstract computer commands “back” to the concrete iconic representation in graphic user interfaces of the digital era; (2) The swing from scroll reading in the pre-print era to page or book reading in the print era and “back” to scroll reading in the digital era; (3) The swing from a low level of authorship in the pre-print era to a strong authorship perception in the print era, and “back” to a low degree of authorship in the digital era; (4) The swing from synchronic representation of text in both visual and audio formats during the pre-print era to a visual representation only in print, and “back” to a synchronic representation in many environments of the digital era. We suggest that the print culture, which is usually considered the natural and preferred textual environment, should be regarded as the exception. (shrink)

From the perspective of the system of systems development, system-level functional testing is required for designing subsystems. This study utilizes modeling and simulation techniques to analyze the operational behaviors of the subsystems and confirm data communication between them. The targeted system in the study is a naval combat system, which is a typical type of defense cyber-physical system. Three types of models were designed for the simulation testing of the NCS: a combat-management model for simulating the overall computational activities, physical (...) models to confirm the intrasubsystem behaviors, and data integration models to test the intersubsystem communications. These models are realized with the Model-View-ViewModel design pattern, which strongly facilitates graphical user interfaces being decoupled from model logic and data. We consider underwater combat scenarios as an application. Six significant physical subsystems within the NCS are simulated and tested: a ship-steering system, an inertial navigation system, a global navigation satellite system, a periscope, sonar systems, and a plotting board. We expect that the proposed work will play a principal role when analyzing the behaviors and communications of defense CPSs and providing an environment for functional testing as a digital twin. (shrink)

Wilderness Search and Rescue is the process of finding and assisting persons who are lost in remote wilderness areas. Because such areas are often rugged or relatively inaccessible, searching for missing persons can take huge amounts of time and resources. Camera-equipped mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have the potential for speeding up the search process by enabling searchers to view aerial video of an area of interest while closely coordinating with nearby ground searchers. In this paper, we report on lessons learned by (...) trying to use UAVs to support WiSAR. Our research methodology has relied heavily on field trials involving searches conducted under the direction of practicing search and rescue personnel but using simulated missing persons. Lessons from these field trials include the immediate importance of seeing things well in the video, the field need for defining and supporting various roles in the search team, role-specific needs like supporting systematic search by providing a visualization tool to represent the quality of the search, and the on-going need to better support interactions between ground and video searchers. Surprisingly to us, sophisticated autonomous search patterns were less critical than we anticipated, though advances in video enhancement and visualizing search progress, as well as ongoing work to model the likely location of a missing person, open up the possibility of closing the loop between UAV path-planning, search quality, and the likely location of a moving missing person. Keywords: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Wilderness Search and Rescue, Human–Robot Interaction, Human Factors, Field Robotics, Graphical User Interfaces. (shrink)

Modern education attaches great importance to interdisciplinary skills, among which computational thinking is a core element, and heralds a new era. IT application has shaped education in the 21st century. Computational thinking has provided further impetus for building an all-encompassing social network and fostering a DIY culture enabled by digital technologies. One empirical study used four apps to test children's development in computational thinking and fluency. The article will help students overcome their fears of coding. Peer reviews provide students with (...) an opportunity to learn from each other and become more motivated. These reviews also serve as feedback for teachers to evaluate students' performance. Experimental design is used in this study, and a peer review system is implemented. Freshmen attending a programming class in a university are used as samples. At the class, students write computer programs with f-Chart, which provides a graphical user interface for students to learn programming logic and design. Zuvio, a cloud-based interactive response system, is used to conduct the peer reviews. The data of this study are analyzed through R. The results show not only an improvement in students' learning performance but also a gap between students' peer review scores and teachers' evaluation scores. Learning feedback and evaluation is crucial to transform education between students and teachers into a sustainable cycle system. (shrink)

This paper addresses the possibility of measuring perceived usability in an absolute way. It studies the impact of the nature of the tasks performed in perceived software usability evaluation, using for this purpose the subjective evaluation of an application’s performance via the Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI). The paper reports on the post-hoc analysis of data from a productivity study for testing the effect of changes in the graphical user interface (GUI) of a market leading drafting application. (...) Even though one would expect similar evaluations of an application’s usability for same releases, the analysis reveals that the output of this subjective appreciation is context sensitive and therefore mediated by the research design. Our study unmasked a significant interaction between the nature of the tasks used for the usability evaluation and how users evaluate the performance of this application. This interaction challenges the concept of absolute benchmarking in subjective usability evaluation, as some software evaluation methods aspire to provide, since subjective measurement of software quality will be affected most likely by the nature of the testing materials used for the evaluation. (shrink)

This paper describes an experimental platform for approximate knowledge databases called the Approximate Knowledge Database, based on a semantics inspired by rough sets. The implementation is based upon the use of a standard SQL database to store logical facts, augmented with several query interface layers implemented in JAVA through which extensional, intensional and local closed world nonmonotonic queries in the form of crisp or approximate logical formulas can be evaluated tractably. A graphical database design user interface (...) is also provided which simplifies the design of databases, the entering of data and the construction of queries. The theory and semantics for AKDBs is presented in addition to application examples and details concerning the database implementation. (shrink)

Interactive computer systems can support their users in problem solving, both in Performing their work tasks and in using the systems themselves. Not only is direct support for heuristics beneficial, but to do so modifies the form of computer support provided. This Paper defines and explores the use of problem solving heuristics in user interface design.

Connecting people across the digital divide is as much a social effort as a technological one. We are developing a community-centred approach to learn how interaction techniques can compensate for poor communication across the digital divide. We have incorporated the lessons learned regarding social intelligence design in an abstraction and in a device called the SoftBridge. The SoftBridge allows communication to flow from endpoints through adapters, getting converted if necessary, and out to destination endpoints. Field trials are underway with two (...) communities in South Africa: disadvantaged Deaf users and an isolated rural community. Initial lessons learned show that we have to design user interfaces that allow users to understand and cope with delay. We also learned that social concerns are often more important than the technical issues in designing such systems. (shrink)

This paper describes a tool for assisting lawyers and paralegal teams during document review in eDiscovery. The tool combines a machine learning technology (CategoriX) and advanced multi-touch interface capable of not only addressing the usual cost, time and accuracy issues in document review, but also of facilitating the work of the review teams by capitalizing on the intelligence of the reviewers and enabling collaborative work.

To make the interface design of computer application system better, meet the psychological and emotional needs of users, and be more humanized, the emotional factor is increasingly valued by interface designers. In the design of human-computer interaction graphical interfaces, the designer attaches great importance to the emotional design of the interface, and enhances the humanized design of the interface, which cannot only improve the comfort of the interface, but also improve the fun of the (...) interface, to ensure the psychological and emotional needs of users can be better satisfied. It may acquire information that is favorable to innovative design by utilizing cluster analysis algorithm to tackle the problem of complicated cultural information, and then utilize cellular genetic algorithm to carry out creative design of cultural items. It increases the availability of cultural and creative goods. The classic cluster analysis technique offers the maximum data clustering effect of 53.3%, according to the findings of this paper’s experiments. While the improved cluster analysis algorithm has the highest data clustering effect of 90%. It can be seen that the improved cluster analysis algorithm can effectively perform cluster analysis on a large amount of data in cultural and creative products. It thus finds out the most suitable designer’s creative information, which helps designers create better products. (shrink)

Driving a car is a highly visual task. Despite the trend towards increased driver assistance and autonomous vehicles, drivers still need to interact with the car for both driving and non-driving relevant tasks, at times simultaneously. The often-resulting high cognitive load is a safety issue which can be addressed by providing the driver with alternative feedback modalities, such as haptics. Recent trends in the automotive industry are moving towards the seamless integration of control elements through touch-sensitive surfaces. Psychological knowledge on (...) optimally utilizing haptic technologies remains limited. The literature on automotive haptic feedback consists mainly of singular findings without putting them into a broader user context with respect to haptic design of interfaces. Moreover, haptic feedback has primarily been limited to the confirmation of control actions rather than the searching or finding of control elements, the latter of which becomes particularly important considering the current trends. This paper presents an integrated framework on haptic processing in automotive user interfaces and provides guidelines for haptic design of user interfaces in car interiors. (shrink)

A graphic means of representing deductive proofs in a sentential system of symbolic logic is presented. Proof construction is characterized as a domain of the cognitive theory of problem solving, and three different interface designs for supporting the working backwards method of proof construction are demonstrated. Following a description of the rule set and the working backwards method, an analysis is given of student performance data that has guided interface development during the past two years. One interface (...) design is shown to be superior to the others in respect to working backwards. Finally, some general conclusions are drawn concerning the relevance of instructional programs for empirically documenting student difficulties and for improving interface designs. (shrink)

Recommender systems are recently developed computer-assisted tools that support social and informational needs of various communities and help users exploit huge amounts of data for making optimal decisions. In this study, we present a new recommender system for assessment and risk prediction in child welfare institutions in Israel. The system exploits a large diachronic repository of manually completed questionnaires on functioning of welfare institutions and proposes two different rule-based computational models. The system accepts users’ requests via a simple graphical (...) interface, calculates the institutions’ profiles according to user preferences, and presents assessment scores, trends and comparative analyses of the corresponding data using assorted visual aids. Based on the analysis, the system offers three different strategies for objective assessment of the institutions’ functioning and risks. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the system’s effectiveness and accuracy demonstrates that it substantially improves the assessment process of a welfare institution. Moreover, it provides an effective tool for objective large-scale analysis of the institution’s overall state and trends, which were previously based primarily on the institution supervisors’ subjective judgment and intuition. In addition, the proposed recommender system has great practical and social impact as it may help identify and avert potential problems, malfunctions, flaws, risks and even tragic incidents in child welfare institutions, as well as increase their overall functioning levels. As a result, as a long-term social implication, the system may also help reduce inequality and social gaps in the Israeli society. (shrink)

In this paper we review some problems with traditional approaches for acquiring and representing knowledge in the context of developing user interfaces. Methodological implications for knowledge engineering and for human-computer interaction are studied. It turns out that in order to achieve the goal of developing human-oriented (in contrast to technology-oriented) human-computer interfaces developers have to develop sound knowledge of the structure and the representational dynamics of the cognitive system which is interacting with the computer.We show that in a first (...) step it is necessary to study and investigate the different levels and forms of representation that are involved in the interaction processes between computers and human cognitive systems. Only if designers have achieved some understanding about these representational mechanisms, user interfaces enabling individual experiences and skill development can be designed. In this paper we review mechanisms and processes for knowledge representation on a conceptual, epistemological, and methodologieal level, and sketch some ways out of the identified dilemmas for cognitive modeling in the domain of human-computer interaction. (shrink)

We present a cut-free tableau calculus with histories and variables for the EXPTIME-complete multi-modal logic of common knowledge. Our calculus constructs the tableau using only one pass, so proof-search for testing theoremhood of ϕ does not exhibit the worst-case EXPTIME-behaviour for all ϕ as in two-pass methods. Our calculus also does not contain a “finitized ω-rule” so that it detects cyclic branches as soon as they arise rather than by worst-case exponential branching with respect to the size of ϕ. Moreover, (...) by retaining the rooted-tree form from traditional tableaux, our calculus becomes amenable to the vast array of optimisation techniques which have proved essential for “practical” automated reasoning in very expressive description logics. Our calculus forms the basis for developing a uniform framework for the family of all fix-point logics of common knowledge. However, there is still no “free lunch” as, in the worst case, our method exhibits 2EXPTIME-behaviour. A prototype implementation can be found at twb.rsise.anu.edu.au which allows users to test formulae via a simple graphical interface. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 58-64 [Access article in PDF] Media Literacy Education in Art:Motion Expression and the New Vision of Art EducationThe Bauhaus, which established the foundation of modern design, has greatly influenced Japanese design and art education. It is a historical fact that the movement views "synthetic art" as an integration of the various fields and the integration of the art and machine technology experimentally. (...) However, the Bauhaus is not just of historical importance but continues to have an influence even in the integration of the art and electronic technology in today's "multimedia." In addition, it can be said that it is very much alive as "the digital Bauhaus" or "the electronic Bauhaus." 1 As we know, today's multimedia and the Internet give us a new life-environment, and expandthe possibility of expression in art. Therefore, current art education must examine how these new medias will be incorporated into the curriculum.In the cases of the photograph, video, or computer, an expression by the image media is added to the art course for the junior high school course of study. 2 Also in school art classes, image media was introduced, expanding the possibilities of self-expression through art. This result can be matched to the needs of the industrial world in Japan as well. As an educational practice, the content of this course of study is promising, even though someproblems must be solved, acquiring new equipment, re-educating the artteacher, and securing additional art school hours. The new content in art education can be summarized as follows:1. The motion picture (animation) which includes time and movement. Motion picture is asequence of continuous images, obviously different from the still images of painting. There are, of course, artworks that express motion or induce the viewer'seye movement. There are also kinetic artworks that do move, such as mobiles. Works of motion picture have, however, a fixed time shaft, and they are formed by the afterimage phenomenon. Thinking about the progress of time shaft is an indispensable element for the production. [End Page 58]2. The synchronism of image and sound. Because time is a factor in the visual expression, the works are compatible with music — the art of time. There is a synchronized relation between the motion picture and music. Image expression with multimedia became synthetic art, just as the Bauhaus looked for "architecture." Currently, this kind of expression transitions from art to entertainment, and permeates daily life.3. The method with interactive art work. Not only artworks of installation, but also TV games and web design have interactive construction as an indispensable interface. The aesthetic value of these visual works will be appreciated when the user starts the action by hitting a touchpad, pushing buttons, or clicking a mouse. To make this kind of artwork, one needs to consider the latent relationships between humans and work, and establish the input-output order for the method of construction.4. The problem of virtual reality. The term "virtual reality" is used by some art teachers as criticism against digital works such as computer graphics. These teachers insist that there is no reality there. One can, however, get an aesthetic feeling through sensory information, imagination, and sensitivity, even though what one sees is an illusion. The feeling of reality a picture of an apple gives, for example, may be equal to a computer graphic apple.Human imagination also creates "virtual reality" beyond reality in the myth, the novel, and so on. It can be said that this is the basis for human creativity.Furthermore, expression by image media raises the problem of a "reality" in which material experience is important to encounterthe world directly. Such an argument discusses multimedia as a tool of expression and a teaching material while reconsidering human reality.More recently, "media literacy" (ability to read and understand media) became an important point of discussion for Japanese educators. Usually, in this discussion, the critical ability to talk back to the television program is emphasized. However, through art... (shrink)

RCLIB is a 2-D graphical interface package available as an addition to the Poplog software development system. "RC" stands for "Relative Coordinates": all the graphical commands are relative to a frame of reference, which can be changed without altering the commands, making it easy to draw the same thing in different parts of a display, using different sizes or orientations, and possibly stretched or sheared.

In recent years, several Vygotskian computer-based learning activities (VCBLAs) were designed in the context of (mathematics) education and implemented on Moodle platform. However, Moodle does not allow users to visualize all chats on a single browser page, and they are forced to open multiple browser windows and switch among them very frequently. This paper describes the features of a plugin for Moodle, called “Quick Chat,” which allows to manage in a single browser window both the narrative flow of a VCBLA (...) and all chats. Some results of an experimentation with PhD students, engaged in solving two mathematical tasks, are shown. (shrink)

In The Interface Envelope, James Ash develops a series of concepts to understand how digital interfaces work to shape the spatial and temporal perception of players. Drawing upon examples from videogame design and work from post-phenomenology, speculative realism, new materialism and media theory, Ash argues that interfaces create envelopes, or localised foldings of space time, around which bodily and perceptual capacities are organised for the explicit production of economic profit. Modifying and developing Bernard Stiegler's account of psychopower and Warren (...) Neidich's account of neuropower, Ash argues the aim of interface designers and publishers is the production of envelope power. Envelope power refers to the ways that interfaces in games are designed to increase users perceptual and habitual capacities to sense difference. Examining a range of examples from specific videogames, Ash identities a series of logics that are key to producing envelope power and shows how these logics have intensified over the last thirty years. In turn, Ash suggests that the logics of interface envelopes in videogames are spreading to other types of interface. In doing so life becomes enveloped as the environments people inhabit becoming increasingly loaded with digital interfaces. Rather than simply negative, Ash develops a series of responses to the potential problematics of interface envelopes and envelope power and emphasizes their pharmacological nature. (shrink)

he World Wide Web is not just an electronic display of text and information. To navigate the WWW, readers need to make decisions about how to pursue and translate their decisions into physical actions. The Web is an interface. -/- Because the WWW shares common ground with both papertext writing and with software interfaces, theories and research from interface design, human-computer interaction, and cognitive science can be used to improve web page interfaces and make the design and presentation (...) of information more effective and usable for the reader. -/- One important similarity between writing and interface design is that both emphasize the need for a thorough audience analysis to determine the tasks, goals, and needs of the reader or user. Writers can apply their knowledge of techniques used to focus their writing on the needs of the user, such as reader analysis and reader-response criticisms, to the interface of the WWW document. (shrink)

One of the more compelling beliefs about vision is that it is based on representations that are coherent and complete, with everything in the visual field described in great detail. However, changes made during a visual disturbance are found to be difficult to see, arguing against the idea that our brains contain a detailed, picture-like representation of the scene. Instead, it is argued here that a more dynamic, "just-in-time" representation is involved, one with deep similarities to the way that users (...) interact with external displays. It is further argued that these similarities can provide a basis for the design of intelligent display systems that can interact with humans in highly effective and novel ways. (shrink)

BackgroundThe neurotechnology behind brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) raises various ethical questions. The ethical literature has pinpointed several issues concerning safety, autonomy, responsibility and accountability, psychosocial identity, consent, privacy and data security. This study aims to assess BCI users’ experiences, self-observations and attitudes in their own right and looks for social and ethical implications.MethodsWe conducted nine semi-structured interviews with BCI users, who used the technology for medical reasons. The transcribed interviews were analyzed according to the Grounded Theory coding method.ResultsBCI users perceive themselves (...) as active operators of a technology that offers them social participation and impacts their self-definition. Each of these aspects bears its own opportunities and risks. BCIs can contribute to retaining or regaining human capabilities. At the same time, BCI use contains elements that challenge common experiences, for example when the technology is in conflict with the affective side of BCI users. The potential benefits of BCIs are regarded as outweighing the risks in that BCI use is considered to promote valuable qualities and capabilities. BCI users appreciate the opportunity to regain lost capabilities as well as to gain new ones.ConclusionsBCI users appreciate the technology for various reasons. The technology is highly appreciated in cases where it is beneficial in terms of agency, participation and self-definitions. Rather than questioning human nature, the technology can retain and restore characteristics and abilities which enrich our lives. (shrink)

This Master’s thesis explores the relationship between Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and their human users from a functional, epistemological and phenomenological perspective. The analysis has four steps. I start out with a technical description of BCI systems in which I conceptually analyze different types of BCI applications. This results in the development of a taxonomy of applications which is the point of departure for further philosophical analysis. Thereafter, I explore the functional relationship between BCI applications and their users. That is to (...) say, I analyze functions of BCI applications, relate them to abilities of their users and explore how they extend these abilities. After that, the epistemological relation between BCI systems and their users is conceptualized by analyzing how they contribute to cognitive processes of their users, which is done by using the distributed cognition framework. And lastly, a postphenomenological framework is adapted to investigate how BCIs mediate the experiences of their users. This thesis ends with a reflection in which (1) possible developments in BCI research are placed in a broader historical-anthropological perspective, and (2) a moral consideration is given on the desirability of BCIs. (shrink)

Brain-computer interfaces are envisioned to enable new abilities of action. This potential can be fruitful in particular when it comes to restoring lost motion or communication abilities or to implementing new possibilities of action. However, BCIs do not come without presuppositions. Applying the concept of ability expectations to BCIs, a wide range of requirements on the side of the users becomes apparent. We examined these ability expectations by taking the example of therapeutic BCI users who got enrolled into BCI research (...) studies due to particular physical conditions. Some of the expectations identified are quite explicit, like particular physical conditions and BCI “literacy”. Other expectations are more implicit, such as motivation, a high level of concentration, pain tolerance, emotion control and resources. These expectations may produce a conception of the human and a self-understanding among BCI users that objectify the body in favour of a brain-centred, cerebral notion of the subject which also plays its part in upholding a normality regime. (shrink)

Smart homes represent an effective approach to improve one’s quality of life. Developing user interfaces that are both comfortable and understandable can assist users, particularly the elderly, embrace smart home technologies. It’s critical to concentrate on the characteristics of smart home interface design and their impact on people of various ages. Since sliders are one of the most common components utilized in the smart home user interface, this article aimed to investigate the effects of slider design (...) characteristics on user performance and preference. Thirty-four participants were recruited for the experiment. Our results revealed that both groups had shorter task completion time, less fixation time, and saccades on horizontal sliding orientation and larger buttons, which means better user performance. For the older group, the slider with color gradient track led to better user performance, while the track color only had less effect on the performance of the younger group. In terms of user preference, the results and performance of the older group were basically consistent, while the younger group had no significant difference in sliding orientation and track color. (shrink)