| Interactions in smart environments and the importance of modelling | | BIBAK | PDF | 1-12 | |
| Peter Forbrig | |||
| One challenge in software engineering is the development of smart
environments that help users to intuitively accomplish their tasks. The ideal
smart environment dynamically manages a diverse collection of devices, is
accessible by multiple users and effectively supports the users' tasks. The
design of smart environments relies on detailed models of devices, users and
their tasks. In this paper, we present our modelling language "CTML"
specifically developed for smart environments. We demonstrate how the language
was designed and how it was used for usability evaluations in a virtual smart
environment. We then discuss the importance of "task migrateability" -- a
usability principle often neglected by contemporary smart environments. We
argue that the proper implementation of this usability criterion can improve
the usability of smart environments. Finally, we investigate how tangible user
interfaces are related to smart environments and how this interaction technique
can be used to support task migrateability. Keywords: supportive user interface, task migratability, smart environment Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| A formative measurement model for the motivational value of an AR-based educational application | | BIBAK | PDF | 13-18 | |
| Costin Pribeanu | |||
| An objective of e-learning systems design is to increase the educational and
motivational values. The evaluation of the motivational value of the
applications based on the augmented reality technology as well as the
evaluation of its relationship with the perceived usefulness and intention to
use is a topic of interest. In this paper a new approach for the evaluation of
the perceived enjoyment is proposed that is based on a formatively measured
construct that is influencing the perceived usefulness and the intention to
use. The measurement model is integrated into a structural model that is
estimated with covariance structure analysis (CSA). Two AR-based applications
(one for learning Biology and the other for learning Chemistry) are used as
case studies. Keywords: motivational value, perceived enjoyment, intention to use, formative index,
augmented reality, e-learning Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| The evaluation of two Augmented Reality applications for school environment -- Focus group with teachers | | BIBAK | PDF | 19-25 | |
| Dragos Daniel Iordache; Ioan Neacsu | |||
| In this paper are presented the evaluation results with teachers of added
value by economic and psychological adequate utilization of a learning-teaching
platform based on augmented reality technology. Two didactical applications
developed on this platform in the framework of international project ARiSE have
been evaluated. The topic of the first application is biology and the second
has been developed for learning chemistry knowledge (atom structure, periodic
table). We used the focus group as evaluation method, with two interview guides
related to each application. Keywords: augmented reality, learning scenario, educational platform, focus group
method Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Prototypes of human-machine interactions and types of educational applications specific to mobile augmented rReality | | BIBAK | PDF | 26-30 | |
| Livia Stefan | |||
| The technology of Augmented Reality -- AR stimulates the perception of the
surrounding reality by means of innovative and interactive human-machine
interfaces. The development in an exponential rhythm of the capabilities of the
mobile devices and also the improvement of the algorithms specific to AR, have
made these devices integrated and miniaturized platforms for AR applications,
and extended their usage not only for academic research but also for commercial
purposes. The present paper structures information concerning prototypes of
human-machine interactions specific to the paradigm of Mobile Augmented Reality
-- MAR and presents usage examples for the design of modern educational
applications for mobile devices. The paper presents final conclusions based on
author's technology evaluations and development of an AR browser educational
application for smartphone. Keywords: augmented reality, educational applications, mobile education, AR browser Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| 2D graphical interaction in e-learning | | BIBAK | PDF | 31-36 | |
| Andreea Chiscari; Dorian Gorgan | |||
| Sketching is often used by people to express ideas. Some concepts that are
hard to explain in words can be easily expressed using a figure or drawing. As
the pen-based user interfaces became common, many systems that use this type of
interaction were built. The traditional methods used in sketch recognition can
be grouped into three categories: aspect-based recognition, gesture-based
recognition and geometry-based recognition. Although each of these methods has
advantages and disadvantages, the geometry-based methods have proved to be the
most suitable for building multi-domain recognizers. As an extension to the
existing eLearning systems, we propose the integration of a sketch recognition
system that can be used in many educational areas. The recognition system
supports the user in the drawing process and offers meaningful and relevant
information about the recognized concepts. In order to use questions that
require a graphical answer, before the system can correctly and automatically
evaluate the student's answer and offer immediate feedback, the teacher must
provide a reference solution to the problem, the correct/expected answer. The
system uses its knowledge, consisting of primitive forms and constraints) to
recognize the graphical primitives and the relations between them and compares
the student's solution with the one given by the teacher. Keywords: human computer interaction, e-learning platform Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Experimentation of an acceptance model of e-learning systems | | BIBAK | PDF | 37-40 | |
| Alexandru Balog | |||
| The aim of this paper is to test a model of acceptance of e-learning systems
using the UTAUT reference model. After a brief description of UTAUT model, are
described the proposed model and the assumptions, methods used and results
obtained from experiments on a sample of students (N = 224). By applying
multivariate analysis methods, the results show that the model is viable in the
e-learning context in Romania. The model explains 63\% of the variance for the
construct "Intention to continue the use of e-learning". Keywords: e-learning systems acceptance, UTAUT Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Controlling the applications running on a Windows system by means of Android devices | | BIBAK | PDF | 41-44 | |
| Cristina Serban; Irina Grosu; Alexandra Siriteanu; Alexandru Averescu; Adrian Iftene | |||
| This article presents an application that the authors have developed for the
Android platform, which allows a user to remotely control the applications on a
computer which has the operating system Microsoft Windows. There are many other
applications that have similar functionalities, such as Vectir, PPT Remote,
Remote presenter for Android or Tango Remote Control Media Player HD, to name a
few. Our application is comprised of two main modules: the client (the
application running on the user's smartphone) and the server (the application
running on the computer). In addition to these, there are two means of
communication between the two modules, based on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The
Android application (the client) is able to connect with any PC running a
server background application. This component offers the user two screens: one
that lists the available desktops and the means of communication (Bluetooth or
Wi-Fi) and one that lists the applications that the user can control together
with the actions available for each of them. The Desktop component (the server)
contains three main modules. The Accessible Applications module keeps a list of
the applications that can be accessed by the application. It gets this
information from an .xml configuration file. The Running Applications module
monitors the running processes in the computer. It is its role to notify the
client whenever an application is started or exited. By receiving commands from
the Android Component, we control applications like Microsoft Power Point and
Windows Media Player. The communication consists of passing strings with a
certain format between the client (the Android Component) and the server (the
Desktop component). The application has been evaluated based on relevant use
cases and tests, such as functionality tests, distance tests, stress tests. Keywords: Android, Windows services, remote control Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Optimizing educational platforms interfaces | | BIBAK | PDF | 45-48 | |
| Constantin-Gelu Apostol; Alina-Mihaela Ion; Dragos Vespan | |||
| The development of educational platforms for promoting assisted instruction
in economic superior learning represents one of the main current concerns of IT
specialists and academics. The article analyzes the issues of promoting user
interactions with such a platform implemented for the students from the French
section of the Faculty of Business Administration from the Bucharest Academy of
Economic Studies. Keywords: CSS3, CMS, mobile devices, adaptive interface Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| The development of educational content based on Web services | | BIBAK | PDF | 49-54 | |
| Arnold-Mihai Waldraf; Dorian Gorgan | |||
| This paper presents the development and the experiments on a Web services
based eLearning platform, called eLaWS. The authors describe the concepts and
the techniques that support the flexible and dynamical development of
educational materials and the improvement of functionality by using a set of
Web services. The new functionality is dynamically added by the eLearning
platform. The user model, dynamic content lesson models, and communication
mechanisms are highlighted and detailed throughout the paper. A few
experimental use cases allow the evaluation and the validation of the eLaWS
platform. Keywords: eLearning, Web services, user interaction techniques, educational content. Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Network based analysis of intertextual relations | | BIBAK | PDF | 55-64 | |
| Ioan Cristian Ghiban; Stefan Trausan-Matu | |||
| The texts are not discrete and closed-off entities and this article gives
evidences that the texts are interconnected in various ways. In this sense,
taking a glimpse at the research extant in the field of network based analysis
of texts, we present the referential and typological intertextuality, some
theoretical models for the Small World property, processing techniques for
evaluating the interconnection between texts, software projects that study the
intertextuality and their results. In the end, two original applications for
supervised and unsupervised analyzing of humanistic antique texts are
introduced. The first application is using LSA and can find the most frequent
words, the most semantically significant ones and also the similarities amongst
documents. Therefore, this application is useful in automatic detection of
textual interconnections (intertextuality). The second application offers user
assistance for commenting a text in terms of its main concepts, automatically
harnessing hypertext resources if a certain html format is encountered. This
assistance process is helpful in the supervised description and clusterization
of texts, also related to intertextuality. Keywords: intertextuality, social networks theory, natural language processing Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Text-to-Speech synthesis for Romanian language | | BIBAK | PDF | 65-70 | |
| Teodor Paul Alin Becan; Dorian Gorgan | |||
| This paper aims to challenge the problem of finding accurate and relevant
search algorithms in order to obtain the best audio output in terms of
intelligibility and naturalness, the usually employed measures to describe the
quality of synthetic speech. It presents the approach used for searching the
sound components that correspond to a provided phonetic transcription input of
the Romanian language in a given acoustic database. We integrate this search
module into the Unit Selection component of a text-to-speech system for
Romanian language. Keywords: text-to-speech synthesis, search algorithms, context Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Automatic analysis of self-explanations | | BIBAK | PDF | 71-76 | |
| Bogdan Oprescu; Mihai Dascalu; Stefan Trausan-Matu; Traian Rebedea; Philippe Dessus; Maryse Bianco | |||
| Self-explanations represent the reader's verbalizations made during the
lecture of a text in order to better understand its content. The proposed
system is designed to automatically analyze these self-explanations, thus
allowing the teacher to assess in detail the understanding level of the read
materials; similar implementations exist only for English. This paper briefly
presents the application's architecture, the integrated technologies and
describes how the assessment of verbalizations has been conducted. The proposed
method is based on natural language processing techniques adapted for French
and it is targeted at primary school pupils. In addition, during the analysis
process we integrated an heuristic at concepts level in order to assess the
similarity between the original texts and the pupils' verbalizations. Keywords: verbalization, SERT, latent semantic analysis, automatic analysis of
self-explanations Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Web 2.0 recruiting | | BIBAK | PDF | 77-80 | |
| Vlad Posea | |||
| The article describes the first steps towards a semantic competence
management system. The system is designed to improve the activity of a
recruiting company specialized in the IT domain and it uses technologies from
the domains of semantic web and web services. Keywords: semantic web, competences, ontologies, LinkedIn Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Specific usability problems with municipal websites: A case study with five district halls | | BIBAK | PDF | 81-84 | |
| Costin Pribeanu; Maria Gheorghe-Moisii; Dragos Daniel Iordache | |||
| The usability of websites is an important requirement in the Information
Society. Unfortunately, evaluation of software products prior to a public
release is not a current practice yet. The purpose of this paper is to present
a case study in the formative usability evaluation of five websites from the
local public administration. The evaluation results show a low usability due to
the lack of a user centered design approach. Keywords: usability, formative usability evaluation, heuristic evaluation, municipal
websites Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Testing a component for learning mathematics with users | | BIBAK | PDF | 85-88 | |
| Ion Smeureanu; Narcisa Isaila | |||
| The usability and accessibility are considered two major attributes in
designing of necessary software for computer assisted learning through
assistive technology (for disabled). Assessed separately, most evaluations are
the result of researches in usability, which are addressed to all, while for
people with disabilities, especially visual, the accessibility is a priority.
The strong connection between accessibility and usability is based on the needs
of users in achieving some clearly defined objectives so the accessibility of
software products should be considered in terms of their use by people with
disabilities. The paper aims to present the result of researches conducted in
two centers of education for people with visual disabilities, concerning the
assessment of software for learning math, according to its accessibility and
usability features. Keywords: mathematics, accessibility, usability, assistive software Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Accessibility analysis of interactive systems using MOM tool | | BIBAK | PDF | 89-92 | |
| Paul Fogarassy-Neszly | |||
| Accessibility of graphical user interface is a necessary condition for
peoples with visual disabilities to use software applications. In order to
evaluate the accessibility for a user interface a dedicated software tool is
necessary; this should be able to identify as much as possible of any
accessibility problem. In this paper several case studies are presented with
accessibility analysis using the MOM (Meaningful Object Manager) tools package. Keywords: accessibility, WAI, MOM, accessibility analysis Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Personas method in the context of semantic Web | | BIBAK | PDF | 93-96 | |
| Stefan Negru; Sabin Buraga | |||
| Personas is a one of the most used method for gathering and presenting the
user preferences in the context of the Human-Computer Interaction. However, a
few studies have focused on linking information obtained via the Personas
method with other information involved into the product development and testing
stages or creating a specific conceptual model. In this article, we consider
several Semantic Web technologies such as microdata and RDFa, in order to
provide a solution to these issues by proposing a conceptual model for personas
(a HTML5 microdata schema). Keywords: Personas, microdata, semantic web, user modelling Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Team formation using psychological profiles | | BIBAK | PDF | 97-102 | |
| Corina Ciubuc; Mihai Dascalu; Stefan Trausan-Matu; Traian Rebedea | |||
| Every person is unique because he has different sets of individual traits
and characteristics. Taking this into consideration, it is clear that people
have different types of personalities, but in the end they manage to understand
each other and interact. The words people use in their daily lives can reveal
important aspects of their behaviour and psychological worlds. Automatic
analysis tools are used by us to quickly assess features of what people say.
This way information about some of their psychological traits is obtained. The
motivation of this article started with the following simple question: is it
possible to recommend a person to a small team formed by students, knowing her
psychological profile, obtained by analyzing the words she is using in her
daily life? The purpose of this writing is to present an elaborated method of
recommending a new member to a team, where various team formation heuristics
are used, as well as a collaborative filtering recommending system. Keywords: psychological profile, team formation, text mining, MBTI model, latent
semantic analysis Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Mood and sentiment assessment using latent semantic analysis | | BIBAK | PDF | 103-108 | |
| Diana Lupan; Mihai Dascalu; Stefan Trausan-Matu; Traian Rebedea; Philippe Dessus; Maryse Bianco | |||
| The analysis of written communication can reveal subtle information, such as
speaker's emotional state, attitude and intentions. However, these cannot
always be extracted accurately, at a level comparable to humans' abilities.
Extracting emotions does not only reveal information about the speaker, but can
also anticipate what effect might the text have on the person who reads it.
Therefore we propose an automatic method for analyzing emotions induced by
texts, more specifically a reader's most likely emotional state after reading a
news article. In order to achieve this, we combined a context independent
approach (analyzing the text that is read using natural language processing
techniques) with the influences of user's current emotional state evaluated
through his/her feedback. Keywords: emotional state, mood assessment, latent semantic analysis, automatic
analysis of news articles Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Evolutionary social network analysis of Web-based educational environments | | BIBAK | PDF | 109-112 | |
| Andrew Laghos | |||
| This research provides a different perspective to analyzing the social
networks that are formed in online learning environments. The novelty of this
study lies in the investigation of the evolution of the online social networks
as opposed to most current research which focuses only on the end state of a
course when analyzing its computer-mediated communication. These educational
social networks continually evolve and change over time, thus a method which
can be used to assess their evolving nature is necessary. The contribution of
this paper to the HCI community is the recommendation of Evolutionary Social
Network Analysis as a method for studying students' communication interactions
with each other during the duration of an online course. In the approach
followed, the proposed method was applied to a case study and the results show
that it can be a useful tool for researchers and educators in studying evolving
social networks. Keywords: social networks, evolution, analysis, web-based education Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| An analysis of the quality and accessibility of suicide information available to the Romanian-speaking user | | BIBAK | PDF | 113-116 | |
| Ana Maria Marhan | |||
| As the potential impact of Internet use on suicidal behaviour is currently
under questioned, experts have yet not conclusively ruled on the extent of this
problem. At the moment, no one really knows what kind of information is exposed
to a disturbed individual while surfing the web, nor how difficult is for a
typical Romanian Internet user to find suicide-related information. Hence, this
paper aims to initiate a discussion on some basic issues related to the quality
and accessibility of suicide-related information available to the
Romanian-speaking user, as a prerequisite in harnessing the potential offered
by Internet technologies in prevention, but also intervention in
suicide-related cases. Keywords: Internet, suicide, information, quality Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Interactive video interface for embedded systems | | BIBAK | PDF | 117-120 | |
| Dan Rotar; Dragos Andrioaia | |||
| This paper presents an original solution to display information on embedded
systems by generating a composite video signal. For simplicity, this signal is
generated without the use of additional circuits. At present such a solution is
based exclusively on a software building the required time durations necessary
for the display of the image. The solution proposed in this paper is based on a
combined software and hardware solution. Thus, the microcontroller module for
pulse width modulation (PWM) is used for the duration of time, and the
displayed line is controlled by software. This paper presents two types of
interfaces also made: an interactive video interface provided with optical
pencil and an interactive video interface provided with touch panel. The
advantage of video interface presented in this paper is to simplify and shorten
design cycle times, increasing its portability and flexibility. Keywords: video interface, optical pen, touch screen, real-time operating, modulated
pulse width, interrupt Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Face recognition based authentication on mobile | | BIBAK | PDF | 121-124 | |
| Julia Kovacs; Dorian Gorgan | |||
| This paper presents the implementation of a face recognition method and
testing techniques on mobile phones with Android operating system. The method
is based on the Eigenfaces algorithm, which allows variations of face
expressions. The Eigenfaces approach is often used because of its simplicity of
implementation and learning ability, there is no need of specific geometry or
explicit descriptions of the face. The performance of the algorithm is
experimentally evaluated by calculating the correct and false acceptance rate
and the correct and false rejection rate. The algorithm is implemented as a Web
Service whose methods are called from an application, developed for mobile
phones with Android operating system. Keywords: face recognition, eigenfaces, Android mobile phone Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Labview interfaces used to generate the waveforms and data files specific of electrical switching devices tests | | BIBAK | PDF | 125-128 | |
| Marinel Popescu; Constantin Iancu | |||
| The paper presents some aspects of activity in laboratory for testing the
power electrical switching devices and electrical equipment. The main elements
of assemblies made for testing, physical quantities measured and recorded and
used transducers are presented. The purpose of this paper is to present a
simple way for interactive generating and visualization of recorded quantities
during operation in transient of power switching devices. The work is aimed at
students of electric faculties and offers the starting point and necessary
support to develop specific means for self-study of the electrical dynamic
regimes. As a novelty, the paper highlights the way for interactive generation
of waveform and data files. It also allows the interactive analysis and
visualization of parameters obtained. Keywords: switching devices, phases, interactive interface, synthetic signals Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||
| Description of satellite images processing in Greenland application | | BIBAK | PDF | 129-134 | |
| Danut Mihon; Vlad Colceriu; Angela Minculescu; Victor Bacu; Dorian Gorgan | |||
| Our society needs and environmental predictions encourage the applications
development, oriented on supervising and analyzing different Earth Science
related phenomena. This paper experiments new methods in satellite images
processing throughout the GreenLand application. Visual descriptions of these
methods represent one of the main objectives of this platform, new features and
concepts being defined for this purpose. GreenLand facilitates the complex
workflows (called hyper-graphs) development, based on two editor tools. The
gProcess and ESIP (Environment Oriented Satellite Data Processing Platform)
platforms have an important role in their development, by providing services
for workflow creation and management. Due to large volume of data that need to
be processed, the GreenLand operators and workflows are executed over the Grid
infrastructure. This platform offers high storage and computing resources,
capable of applying parallel and distributed execution techniques. Keywords: satellite images, GRID processing, graphs, GRID infrastructure, processes
description, interaction techniques. Note: Issue 2 of RRIOC Vol. 5 | |||