This work addresses the evaluation of the human and the automatic speaker recognition performances under different channel distortions caused by bandwidth limitation, codecs, and electro-acoustic user interfaces, among other impairments. Its main contribution is the demonstration of the benefits of communication channels of extended bandwidth, together with an insight into how speaker-specific characteristics of speech are preserved through different transmissions. It provides sufficient motivation for considering speaker recognition as a criterion for the migration from narrowband to enhanced bandwidths, such as wideband and super-wideband.

This book discusses research, methods, and recent developments in the interdisciplinary field that spans research in visualization, eye tracking, human-computer interaction, and psychology. It presents extended versions of papers from the First Workshop on Eye Tracking and Visualization (ETVIS), which was organized as a workshop of the IEEE VIS Conference 2015. Topics include visualization and visual analytics of eye-tracking data, metrics and cognitive models, eye-tracking experiments in the context of visualization interfaces, and eye tracking in 3D and immersive environments. The extended ETVIS papers are complemented by a chapter offering an overview of visualization approaches for analyzing eye-tracking data and a chapter that discusses electrooculography (EOG) as an alternative of acquiring information about eye movements. Covering scientific visualization, information visualization, and visual analytics, this book is a valuable resource for eye-tracking researchers within the visualization community.

This book discusses how smart cities strive to deploy and interconnect infrastructures and services to guarantee that authorities and citizens have access to reliable and global customized services. The book addresses the wide range of topics present in the design, development and running of smart cities, ranging from big data management, Internet of Things, and sustainable urban planning. The authors cover - from concept to practice - both the technical aspects of smart cities enabled primarily by the Internet of Things and the socio-economic motivations and impacts of smart city development. The reader will find smart city deployment motivations, technological enablers and solutions, as well as state of the art cases of smart city implementations and services. * Provides a single compendium of the technological, political, and social aspects of smart cities; * Discusses how the successful deployment of smart Cities requires a unified infrastructure to support the diverse set of applications that can be used towards urban development; * Addresses design, development and running of smart cities, including big data management and Internet of Things applications.

This volume includes proceedings articles presented at the Workshop on Paralinguistic Information and its Integration in Spoken Dialogue Systems held in Granada, Spain. The material focuses on the three broad areas of spoken dialogue systems for robotics, emotions and spoken dialogue systems, and Spoken dialogue systems for real-world applications

The workshop proceedings are part of the 3rd Annual International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue Systems, which brings together researchers from all over the world working in the field of spoken dialogue systems. It provides an international forum for the presentation of research and applications, and for lively discussions among researchers as well as industrialists.

In modernity, an individual identity was constituted from civil society, while in a globalized network society, human identity, if it develops at all, must grow from communal resistance. A communal resistance to an abstract conceptualised world, where there is no possibility for perception and experience of power and therefore no possibility for human choice and action, is of utmost importance for the constituting of human choosers and actors. This book therefore sets focus on those human choosers and actors wishing to read and enjoy the papers as they are actually perceiving and experiencing their lives in a diversity of social and cultural contexts. In so doing, the book tries to imagine in what kind of networks humans may choose and act based on the knowledge and empirical evidence presented in the papers. The topics covered in the book include: People and Their Changing Values. Citizens in a Network Society. The Individual and Knowledge Based Organisations. Human Responsibility and Technology. Exclusion and Regeneration. This valuable new book contains the edited proceedings of the Fifth World Conference on Human Choice and Computers (HCC-5), which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1998. Since the first HCC conference in 1974, IFIP's Technical Committee 9 has endeavoured to set the agenda for human choices and human actions vis-A -vis computers.

Advances in mobile computing have provided numerous innovations that make people's daily lives easier and more convenient. However, as technology becomes more ubiquitous, corresponding risks increase as well. Managing Security Issues and the Hidden Dangers of Wearable Technologies examines the positive and negative ramifications of emerging wearable devices and their potential threats to individuals, as well as organizations. Highlighting socio-ethical issues, policy implementation, and appropriate usage, this book is a pivotal reference source for professionals, policy makers, academics, managers, and students interested in the security and privacy implications of wearable digital devices.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th IFIP TC 9 International Conference on Human Choice and Computers, HCC10 2012, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in September 2012. The 37 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the volume. The papers are organized in topical sections on national and international policies, sustainable and responsible innovation, ICT for peace and war, and citizens' involvement, citizens' rights and ICT.

Tele operation systems, in which robots are controlled remotely, are a potential solution to performing tasks in remote, small, and hazardous environments. However, there is a big disadvantage to these systems; as the direct connection between the human and the environment is lost and operators are deprived of their sense of touch. The recreation of touch feedback through haptic devices is a possible solution, however haptic devices are far from perfect and improving their design is usually a slow trial-and-error process. This book describes 7 scientific studies that try to break this slow loop by using a deductive approach. Through investigating fundamental properties of human haptic perception using psychophysical paradigms, general knowledge on haptic perception of force, position, movement and hardness was gained. The resulting information can be applied to many different haptic devices. Consequently haptic systems can be more easily designed in an intuitive, human-centered way.

Art and Technology of Entertainment Computing and Communication takes a blue sky research perspective on the field of interactive media for entertainment computing. Adrian David Cheok argues that entertainment as an end-product is useful for interactive play, however it is also a powerful tool for learning and communication and it is also a key driver for the development of information technology. This book explores the future of entertainment technologies used for communication and describes quantum step research. It will inform and inspire readers to create their own radical inventions and innovations that are not incremental, but which break through ideas and non-obvious solutions. One of the main explorations is the examination of how new forms of computer interaction can lead to radical new forms of technology and art for entertainment computing. Art and Technology of Entertainment Computing and Communication is an informative and inspirational text for students and the next generation of researchers. It s main aim is to provide information that will hopefully help change the world and society for the better, through new modes of entertainment and communication. Academics, researchers, engineers, game designers, and interaction designers, will find the content both interesting and valuable. Entertainment is the "engine" to inspire people and drive innovation in interactive digital media design. The pioneer of the field, Prof. Adrian David Cheok, takes you on an exciting tour of the future shaped by the Entertainment Technologies. Hiroshi ISHII, Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Laboratory."

This is an edited collection by world-class experts, from diverse fields, focusing on integrating smart in-vehicle systems with human factors to enhance safety in automobiles. The book presents developments on road safety, in-vehicle technologies and state-of-the art systems. Includes coverage of DSP technologies in adaptive automobiles, algorithms and evaluation of in-car communication systems, driver-status monitoring and stress detection, in-vehicle dialogue systems and human-machine interfaces, challenges in video and audio processing for in-vehicle products, multi-sensor fusion for driver identification and vehicle to infrastructure wireless technologies.

The ways in which humans communicate with one another is constantly evolving. Technology plays a large role in this evolution via new methods and avenues of social and business interaction. The Handbook of Research on Human Interaction and the Impact of Information Technologies is a primary reference source featuring the latest scholarly perspectives on technological breakthroughs in user operation and the processes of communication in the digital era. Including a number of topics such as health information technology, multimedia, and social media, this publication is ideally designed for professionals, technology developers, and researchers seeking current research on technology's role in communication.

The practical task of building a talking robot requires a theory of how natural language communication works. Conversely, the best way to computationally verify a theory of natural language communication is to demonstrate its functioning concretely in the form of a talking robot, the epitome of human-machine communication. To build an actual robot requires hardware that provides appropriate recognition and action interfaces, and because such hardware is hard to develop the approach in this book is theoretical: the author presents an artificial cognitive agent with language as a software system called database semantics (DBS). Because a theoretical approach does not have to deal with the technical difficulties of hardware engineering there is no reason to simplify the system - instead the software components of DBS aim at completeness of function and of data coverage in word form recognition, syntactic-semantic interpretation and inferencing, leaving the procedural implementation of elementary concepts for later.

In this book the author first examines the universals of natural language and explains the Database Semantics approach. Then in Part I he examines the following natural language communication issues: using external surfaces; the cycle of natural language communication; memory structure; autonomous control; and learning. In Part II he analyzes the coding of content according to the aspects: semantic relations of structure; simultaneous amalgamation of content; graph-theoretical considerations; computing perspective in dialogue; and computing perspective in text. The book ends with a concluding chapter, a bibliography and an index.

The book will be of value to researchers, graduate students and engineers in the areas of artificial intelligence and robotics, in particular those who deal with natural language processing.

Participatory design is about the direct involvement of people in the co-design of the technologies they use. Its central concern is how collaborative design processes can be driven by the participation of the people affected by the technology designed. Embracing a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses, and social institutions more responsive to human needs, the International Handbook of Participatory Design is a state-of-the-art reference handbook for the subject. The Handbook brings together a multidisciplinary and international group of highly recognized and experienced experts to present an authoritative overview of the field and its history and discuss contributions and challenges of the pivotal issues in participatory design, including heritage, ethics, ethnography, methods, tools and techniques and community involvement. The book also highlights three large-scale case studies which show how participatory design has been used to bring about outstanding changes in different organizations. The book shows why participatory design is an important, highly relevant and rewarding area for research and practice. It will be an invaluable resource for students, researchers, scholars and professionals in participatory design.

The International Workshop on "Human Interaction with Machines" is the sixth in a successful series of workshops that were established by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Technische Universitat Berlin. The goal of those workshops is to bring together researchers from both universities in order to present research results to an international community. The series of workshops started in 1990 with the International Workshop on "Artificial Intelligence" and was continued with the International Workshop on "Advanced Software Technology" in 1994. Both workshops have been hosted by Shanghai Jiaotong University. In 1998 the third wo- shop took place in Berlin. This International Workshop on "Communi- tion Based Systems" was essentially based on results from the Graduiertenkolleg on Communication Based Systems that was funded by the German Research Society (DFG) from 1991 to 2000. The fourth Int- national Workshop on "Robotics and its Applications" was held in Sha- hai in 2000. The fifth International Workshop on "The Internet Challenge: Technology and Applications" was hosted by TU Berlin in 2002."

An exploration of the effects of new technology on culture and psychology, this title demonstrates how society has been both enriched and challenged by these changes. It should be of interest to those who need to be aware of the psychological impact of new technology and responsive to issues of international communication and cooperation.

Digital Divide (DD) is a term that defines the division between people, commu- ties, states, countries, etc. with respect to the access to the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Nowadays, it is essential to have tech- logical skills to work in a variety of jobs (i. e. administration, education, etc. ). Moreover, ICTs have become ubiquitous and they affect almost every aspect of our daily life. The way in which people face the task of using ICTs varies depending on a plethora of variables. The most analysed ones are the technological literacy and the educational level. These are two very important factors that strongly affect the success of the individuals in accessing ICTs. Unfortunately, these are not the only variables to consider. Some people suffer from mental and physical disabilities that are real impediments to access ICTs, and they must be studied in detail. How can we help disabled people to access ICTs? Can public telecentres deal with this task? Can the ICTs be used to improve the accessibility of disabled people? Which projects aim to reduce the digital divide? Are they addressed to disabled people? These are some of the questions that we will try to answer, at least partially, in this chapter. We believe that governments must invest to avert the DD, but they are not the only actors involved in this scenario.

The goal of this book is to crystallize the emerging mobile computing technologies and trends by focusing on the most promising solutions in services computing. The book will provide clear proof that mobile technologies are playing an increasingly important and critical role in supporting toy computing. The goal of this book is to bring together academics and practitioners to describe the use and synergy between the above-mentioned technologies. This book is intended for researchers and students working in computer science and engineering, as well as toy industry technology providers, having particular interests in mobile services.

Whole Body Interaction is The integrated capture and processing of human signals from physical, physiological, cognitive and emotional sources to generate feedback to those sources for interaction in a digital environment (England 2009).

"Whole Body Interaction "looks at the challenges of Whole Body Interaction from the perspectives of design, engineering and research methods. How do we take physical motion, cognition, physiology, emotion and social context to push boundaries of Human Computer Interaction to involve the complete set of human capabilities? Through the use of various applications the authors attempt to answer this question and set a research agenda for future work.

Aimed at students and researchers who are looking for new project ideas or to extend their existing work with new dimensions of interaction.

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This book describes an extension of the user behaviour simulation (UBS) of an existing tool for automatic usability evaluation (AUE). This extension is based upon a user study with a smart home system. It uses technical-sociological methods for the execution of the study and the analysis of the collected data. A comparison of the resulting UBS with former UBSs, as well as the empirical data, shows that the new simulation approach outperforms the former simulation. The improvement affects the prediction of dialogue metrics that are related to dialogue efficiency and dialogue effectiveness. Furthermore, the book describes a parameter-based data model, as well as a related framework. Both are used to uniformly describe multimodal human-computer interactions and to provide such descriptions for usability evaluations. Finally, the book proposes a new two-stage method for the evaluation of UBSs. The method is based on the computation of a distance measures between two dialogue corpora and the pair-wise comparison of distances among several dialogue corpora.

Face Image Analysis by Unsupervised Learning explores adaptive approaches to image analysis. It draws upon principles of unsupervised learning and information theory to adapt processing to the immediate task environment. In contrast to more traditional approaches to image analysis in which relevant structure is determined in advance and extracted using hand-engineered techniques, Face Image Analysis by Unsupervised Learning explores methods that have roots in biological vision and/or learn about the image structure directly from the image ensemble. Particular attention is paid to unsupervised learning techniques for encoding the statistical dependencies in the image ensemble. The first part of this volume reviews unsupervised learning, information theory, independent component analysis, and their relation to biological vision. Next, a face image representation using independent component analysis (ICA) is developed, which is an unsupervised learning technique based on optimal information transfer between neurons. The ICA representation is compared to a number of other face representations including eigenfaces and Gabor wavelets on tasks of identity recognition and expression analysis. Finally, methods for learning features that are robust to changes in viewpoint and lighting are presented. These studies provide evidence that encoding input dependencies through unsupervised learning is an effective strategy for face recognition. Face Image Analysis by Unsupervised Learning is suitable as a secondary text for a graduate-level course, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.

Amid recent interest in Clifford algebra for dual quaternions as a more suitable method for Computer Graphics than standard matrix algebra, this book presents dual quaternions and their associated Clifford algebras in a new light, accessible to and geared towards the Computer Graphics community. Collating all the associated formulas and theorems in one place, this book provides an extensive and rigorous treatment of dual quaternions, as well as showing how two models of Clifford algebras emerge naturally from the theory of dual quaternions. Each chapter comes complete with a set of exercises to help readers sharpen and practice their knowledge. This book is accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of quaternion algebra and is of particular use to forward-thinking members of the Computer Graphics community. .

This edited volume with selected expanded papers from CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) 2011 (http://www.celda- -conf.org/) will focus on Ubiquitous and Mobile Informal and Formal Learning in the Digital Age, with sub-topics: Mobile and Ubiquitous Informal and Formal Learning Environments (Part I), Social Web Technologies for new knowledge representation, retrieval, creation and sharing in Informal and Formal Educational Settings (Part II), Virtual Worlds and Game- -based Informal and Formal Learning (Part III), Location- -based and Context- - Aware Environments for Formal and Informal Learning Integration (Part IV) There will be approximately twenty chapters selected for this edited volume from among peer- -reviewed papers presented at the CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) 2011 Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in November, 2011.

The book discusses novel visualization techniques driven by the needs in medicine and life sciences as well as new application areas and challenges for visualization within these fields. It presents ideas and concepts for visual analysis of data from scientific studies of living organs or to the delivery of healthcare. Target scientific domains include the entire field of biology at all scales - from genes and proteins to organs and populations - as well as interdisciplinary research based on technological advances such as bioinformatics, biomedicine, biochemistry, or biophysics. Moreover, they comprise the field of medicine and the application of science and technology to healthcare problems. This book does not only present basic research pushing the state of the art in the field of visualization, but it also documents the impact in the fields of medicine and life sciences.

COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS Becoming a pervasive paradigm In recent years the area of collaborative networks is being consolidated as a new discipline (Camarinha-Matos, Afsarmanesh, 2005) that encompasses and gives more structured support to a large diversity of collaboration forms. In terms of applications, besides the "traditional" sectors represented by the advanced supply chains, virtual enterprises, virtual organizations, virtual teams, and their breading environments, new forms of collaborative structures are emerging in all sectors of the society. Examples can be found in e-government, intelligent transportation systems, collaborative virtual laboratories, agribusiness, elderly care, silver economy, etc. In some cases those developments tend to adopt a terminology that is specific of that domain; often the involved actors in a given domain are not fully aware of the developments in the mainstream research on collaborative networks. For instance, the grid community adopted the term "virtual organization" but focused mainly on the resource sharing perspective, ignoring most of the other aspects involved in collaboration. The European enterprise interoperability community, which was initially focused on the intra-enterprise aspects, is moving towards inter-enterprise collaboration. Collaborative networks are thus becoming a pervasive paradigm giving basis to new socio-organizational structures.