This book explores Information theory (IT) tools, which have become state of the art to solve and understand better many of the problems in visualization. This book covers all relevant literature up to date. It is the first book solely devoted to this subject, written by leading experts in the field.

Considering the overall situation of the current pandemic and pertinent recommendations, this book focuses on the use of augmented reality (AR) applications for preventing COVID-19 outbreaks along with techniques, tools, and platforms to achieve social distancing.and sanitization. COVID-19 Public Health Measures: An Augmented Reality Perspective contains theoretical and practical knowledge of AR and remedies on how to cope with the pandemic, including multiple use cases along with a set of recommendations. This book illustrates application building using open-source software with an interactive interface to aid impaired users. The initial part of this book emphasizes the basic knowledge of AR, technology, devices, and rest of the relevant theories. This book is aimed at researchers, students of AR, technical healthcare professionals, and practitioners. Key Features: * Consists of an extensive introduction to the terminologies and components of AR * Provides in-depth knowledge of various tools and techniques used in AR * Introduces various platforms and software development kits (SDKs) such as Unity Engine, Unreal Engine, and Vuforia * Gives a step-by-step guide for the development of an AR app * Describes how AR can be used specifically by impaired users not only in the situation of current pandemic but also in normal situations thus simplifying day-to-day activities

Virtual Reality is not real life. Instead it is life-like creations using computer-generated scenarios. Human behavior is replicated in virtual scenarios, where every detail is controlled by computers, and in situations that can be repeated under the same conditions. Based on technology and design, the user can experience presence. In the virtual world, users are embodied in avatars that represent them and are the means to interact with the virtual environment. Avatars are graphical models that behave on behalf of the human behind them. The user avatar is a proxy that also backs interaction with others, allowing computer-mediated interactions. Analyses directed to understand people's perceptions, personal and social behavior in computer mediated interactions, comprise a multidisciplinary area of study that involves, among others, computer science, psychology and sociology. In the last two decades a number of studies supported by Virtual Reality have been conducted to understand human behavior, in some cases the implications of the technology, or to reproduce artificial human behavior. This book presents a collection of studies from recognized researchers in the area.

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of our species then would come to depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation? To get closer to an answer to this question, we must make our way through a fascinating landscape of topics and considerations. Read the book and learn about oracles, genies, singletons; about boxing methods, tripwires, and mind crime; about humanity's cosmic endowment and differential technological development; indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation and technology couplings; Malthusian economics and dystopian evolution; artificial intelligence, and biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence. This profoundly ambitious and original book picks its way carefully through a vast tract of forbiddingly difficult intellectual terrain. Yet the writing is so lucid that it somehow makes it all seem easy. After an utterly engrossing journey that takes us to the frontiers of thinking about the human condition and the future of intelligent life, we find in Nick Bostrom's work nothing less than a reconceptualization of the essential task of our time.

Manufacturing, like other industries, is rising to the challenges imposed by aggressive consumer demands and the need for cost-effective processing that delivers quality in the fastest possible time. Fierce competition means that keeping abreast of new developments and applications in technology is essential if companies are to meet demands profitably and keep ahead of competitors. This book investigates the design and management of digital manufacturing and assembly systems for an efficient, flexible, and modular production of customized products using the I40 (industry 4.0)-enabling technologies. This book will also provide case studies covering modeling, simulation, and optimization. eBook includes color figures. Discusses how the advancement of data communication and storage through the Internet of Things (IoT) opens the possibilities of connecting sensors, robots, and devices Sheds light on how the human role in industry is decreasing due to the development of connected manufacturing floors, allowing them to take more control over the manufacturing processes, decisions, and even maintenance Covers the benefits from exploiting digital manufacturing, manufacturing enterprises, and what they expect to achieve Explains the important roles that modeling, simulation, and optimization play Investigates the design and management of digital manufacturing and assembly systems for an efficient, flexible, and modular production of customized products exploiting the I40 (industry 4.0)-enabling technologies

This book provides critical commentary on key issues around virtual reality, using media technology as a tool to challenge perspectives for learning and understanding cultural diversities. With a focus on empathy, embodiment and ethics, the book interrogates the use of immersive technologies for formal and informal educational contexts. Taking a critical approach to discourses around emerging technology and learning, the book presents the idea that a new literacy is emerging and an emphasis on media and technology is needed in the context of education to explore and experience cultural diversities. Employing a personal reflexive narrative, the chapters highlight key issues through research and interviews with leading practitioners in the field. Understanding Virtual Reality will be of great interest to academics and students interested in the effects of immersive realities on the education experience, and to anyone keen on exploring the paradigm shift from entertainment to education.

Digital media have become deeply immersed in our lives, heightening both hopes and fears of their affordances. While the internet, mobile phones, and social media offer their users many options, they also engender concerns about their manipulations and intrusions. Emotions Online explores the visions that shape responses to media and the emotional regimes that govern people's engagements with them. This book critically examines evidence on the role of digital media in emotional life. Offering a sociological perspective and using ideas from science and technology studies and media studies, it explores: * The dimensions and operations of the online emotional economy * Growing concerns about online harms and abuse, especially to children * 'Deepfakes' and other forms of image-based abuse * The role of hope in shaping online behaviours * 'Digital well-being' and its market * COVID-19's impacts on perceptions of digital media and Big Tech * Growing challenges to centralised control of the internet, and the implications for future emotional life The book breaks new ground in the sociological study of digital media and the emotions. It reveals the dynamics of online emotional regimes showing how deceptive designs and algorithm-driven technologies serve to attract and engage users. As it argues, digital media rely on the emotional labours of many people, including social media inf luencers and content moderators who make the internet seem smart. The book provides an invaluable overview of the evidence and debates on the role of digital media in emotional life and guidance for future research, policy, and action.

Videogames and Agency explores the trend in videogames and their marketing to offer a player higher volumes, or even more distinct kinds, of player freedom. The book offers a new conceptual framework that helps us understand how this freedom to act is discussed by designers, and how that in turn reflects in their design principles. What can we learn from existing theories around agency? How do paratextual materials reflect design intention with regards to what the player can and cannot do in a videogame? How does game design shape the possibility space for player action? Through these questions and selected case studies that include AAA and independent games alike, the book presents a unique approach to studying agency that combines game design, game studies, and game developer discourse. By doing so, the book examines what discourses around player action, as well as a game's design can reveal about the nature of agency and videogame aesthetics. This book will appeal to readers specifically interested in videogames, such as game studies scholars or game designers, but also to media studies students and media and screen studies scholars less familiar with digital games.

This book presents insights, interpretations, concepts, and interdependent views-in the landscape of mobile connectivity and service-that emphasize the significance of a harmonious interplay, cooperation, and coalescing of a variety of interdisciplinary domains of science and art. Mobile Evolution: Insights on Connectivity and Service explores the forward-looking and enabling capabilities of mobile connectivity and service in the context of long term evolution (LTE) systems and multimedia services, as viewed through a lens of human experience. It provides information and guidelines pertaining to the strategies and technologies associated with the next-generation mobile ecosystem. The book examines the intersection between the technology and the human dimension in the context of the ever-changing landscape. It arms you with ideas that you can apply to design, innovation, strategy, and business models for the various facets of mobile communication connectivity and service.

This book, originally published in 1992, encapsulates ten years of research at the Open University's Human Cognition Research Laboratory. The research investigates the problems of novice programmers, and is strongly oriented toward the design and implementation of "programming environments" aimed at eliminating or easing novices' problems. A range of languages is studied: Pascal, SOLO, Lisp, Prolog and "Knowledge Engineering Programming". The primary emphasis of the empirical studies is to gain some understanding of novices' "mental models" of the inner workings of computers. Such (erroneous) models are constructed by novices in their own heads to account for the idiosyncrasies of particular programming languages. The primary emphasis of the implementations described in the book is the provision of "automatic debugging aids", i.e. artificial intelligence programs which can analyse novices' buggy programs, and make sense of them, thereby providing useful advice for the novices. Another related strand taken in some of the work is the concept of "pre-emptive design", i.e. the provision of tools such as syntax-directed editors and graphical tracers which help programmers avoid many frequently-occurring errors. A common thread throughout the book is its Cognitive Science/Artificial Intelligence orientation. AI tools are used, for instance, to construct simulation models of subjects writing programs, in order to provide insights into what their deep conceptual errors are. At the other extreme, AI programs which were developed in order to help student debug their programs are observed empirically in order to ensure that they provide facilities actually needed by real programmers. This book will be of great interest to advanced undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional researchers in Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Human-Computer Interaction.

The richly illustrated Interactive Web-Based Data Visualization with R, plotly, and shiny focuses on the process of programming interactive web graphics for multidimensional data analysis. It is written for the data analyst who wants to leverage the capabilities of interactive web graphics without having to learn web programming. Through many R code examples, you will learn how to tap the extensive functionality of these tools to enhance the presentation and exploration of data. By mastering these concepts and tools, you will impress your colleagues with your ability to quickly generate more informative, engaging, and reproducible interactive graphics using free and open source software that you can share over email, export to pdf, and more. Key Features: Convert static ggplot2 graphics to an interactive web-based form Link, animate, and arrange multiple plots in standalone HTML from R Embed, modify, and respond to plotly graphics in a shiny app Learn best practices for visualizing continuous, discrete, and multivariate data Learn numerous ways to visualize geo-spatial data This book makes heavy use of plotly for graphical rendering, but you will also learn about other R packages that support different phases of a data science workflow, such as tidyr, dplyr, and tidyverse. Along the way, you will gain insight into best practices for visualization of high-dimensional data, statistical graphics, and graphical perception. The printed book is complemented by an interactive website where readers can view movies demonstrating the examples and interact with graphics.

Diagnostic Expertise in Organizational Environments provides a state-of-the-art foundation for a new paradigm in expertise research and practice. Skilled diagnosis is essential for accurate and efficient performance across a range of organizational contexts, including aviation, finance, rail, forensic investigation, firefighting, and medicine. However, it is also a complex process, subject to the abilities and experience of individual operators, the culture and practices of organizations, the relationships between operators, and the availability and usefulness of technology. As a consequence, diagnostic skills can be difficult to learn, maintain, and evaluate. This volume is a comprehensive approach that examines diagnostic expertise at the level of the individual practitioner, in the social context, and at the organizational level. The chapter authors comprise both academics and highly skilled practitioners so that there is a clear transition from understanding the problem of diagnostic skills to the implementation of solutions, either through redesign, training, and/or selection. It will appeal to those academics and practitioners interested and involved in this field and also prove useful to students of psychology, cognitive science education and/or computer interaction.

- Written by world-leading subject specialist in both sport management and artificial intelligence - Includes interviews with elite sports managers and coaches - Examines the competitive advantages offered by AI to a wide-range of areas including Recruitment, Performance & Tactics, Health & Fitness, Pedagogy, Broadcasting, eSports, Gambling, and Stadium Design

In this book, we have set up a unified analytical framework for various human-robot systems, which involve peer-peer interactions (either space-sharing or time-sharing) or hierarchical interactions. A methodology in designing the robot behavior through control, planning, decision and learning is proposed. In particular, the following topics are discussed in-depth: safety during human-robot interactions, efficiency in real-time robot motion planning, imitation of human behaviors from demonstration, dexterity of robots to adapt to different environments and tasks, cooperation among robots and humans with conflict resolution. These methods are applied in various scenarios, such as human-robot collaborative assembly, robot skill learning from human demonstration, interaction between autonomous and human-driven vehicles, etc. Key Features: Proposes a unified framework to model and analyze human-robot interactions under different modes of interactions. Systematically discusses the control, decision and learning algorithms to enable robots to interact safely with humans in a variety of applications. Presents numerous experimental studies with both industrial collaborative robot arms and autonomous vehicles.

User experience (UX) strategy lies at the intersection of UX design and business strategy, but until now, there hasn't been an easy-to-apply framework for executing it. This hands-on guide introduces lightweight product strategy tools and techniques to help you and your team devise innovative digital solutions that people want. Author Jaime Levy shows UX/UI designers, product managers, entrepreneurs, and aspiring strategists simple to advanced methods that can be applied right away. You'll gain valuable perspective through business cases and historical context. This second edition includes new real-world examples, updated techniques, and a chapter on conducting qualitative online user research. Define value propositions and validate target users through provisional personas and customer discovery techniques Explore marketplace opportunities by conducting competitive research and analysis Design experiments using rapid prototypes that are focused on the business model Conduct online user research to gain valuable insights quickly on any budget Test business ideas and validate marketing channels by running online advertising and landing page campaigns

This book introduces the basics in game usability and overall game UX mindset and techniques, as well as looking at current industry best practices and trends. Fully updated for its second edition, it includes practical advice on how to include usability in already tight development timelines, and how to advocate for UX and communicate results to higher-ups effectively. The book begins with an introduction to UX strategy considerations for games, and to UX design, before moving on to cover core user research and usability techniques as well as how to fit UX practices into the business process. It provides considerations of player differences and offers strategies for inclusion as well as chapters that give platform and context specific advice. With a wealth of new interviews with industry leaders and contributions from the very best in game UX, the book also includes brand new chapters on: Accessibility Mobile Game Usability Data Science Virtual and Augmented Reality Esports This book will be vital reading for all professional game developers and game UX advocates, as well as those students aspiring to work in game development and game UX.

The Book presents an overview of newly developed watermarking techniques in various independent and hybrid domains Covers the basics of digital watermarking, its types, domain in which it is implemented and the application of machine learning algorithms onto digital watermarking Reviews hardware implementation of watermarking Discusses optimization problems and solutions in watermarking with a special focus on bio-inspired algorithms Includes a case study along with its MATLAB code and simulation results

Digital media have become deeply immersed in our lives, heightening both hopes and fears of their affordances. While the internet, mobile phones, and social media offer their users many options, they also engender concerns about their manipulations and intrusions. Emotions Online explores the visions that shape responses to media and the emotional regimes that govern people's engagements with them. This book critically examines evidence on the role of digital media in emotional life. Offering a sociological perspective and using ideas from science and technology studies and media studies, it explores: * The dimensions and operations of the online emotional economy * Growing concerns about online harms and abuse, especially to children * 'Deepfakes' and other forms of image-based abuse * The role of hope in shaping online behaviours * 'Digital well-being' and its market * COVID-19's impacts on perceptions of digital media and Big Tech * Growing challenges to centralised control of the internet, and the implications for future emotional life The book breaks new ground in the sociological study of digital media and the emotions. It reveals the dynamics of online emotional regimes showing how deceptive designs and algorithm-driven technologies serve to attract and engage users. As it argues, digital media rely on the emotional labours of many people, including social media inf luencers and content moderators who make the internet seem smart. The book provides an invaluable overview of the evidence and debates on the role of digital media in emotional life and guidance for future research, policy, and action.

This book collates the key security and privacy concerns faced by individuals and organizations who use various social networking sites. This includes activities such as connecting with friends, colleagues, and family; sharing and posting information; managing audio, video, and photos; and all other aspects of using social media sites both professionally and personally. In the setting of the Internet of Things (IoT) that can connect millions of devices at any one time, the security of such actions is paramount. Securing Social Networks in Cyberspace discusses user privacy and trust, location privacy, protecting children, managing multimedia content, cyberbullying, and much more. Current state-of-the-art defense mechanisms that can bring long-term solutions to tackling these threats are considered in the book. This book can be used as a reference for an easy understanding of complex cybersecurity issues in social networking platforms and services. It is beneficial for academicians and graduate-level researchers. General readers may find it beneficial in protecting their social-media-related profiles.

a short and accessible introduction to AI and computational creativity written by a leading expert

Rapidly Prototyping Interfaces with InDesign guides readers to learn to create a wide range of interfaces, from mobile to desktop. With InDesign, interface prototyping takes minutes instead of days. This book is code-free and entirely hands-on with InDesign tools. This book acts as a guide for how to prototype user interfaces with InDesign, using diagrams, illustrations, and screen shots. This illustrated book concerns the creation and prototyping of eBooks, eMagazines, websites, desktop apps and movile apps. InDesign is an important tool for rapid prototyping, as no coding is involved. Key Features No available book provides this information. The reader will learn how to prototype a wide range of interfaces for both desktop and movile platforms. The book will include software screen shots and guide the reader step by step. The example prototypes will be interactive. Users can test them using interactive devices, such as desktop computers, tablets or mobile phones. The reader will learn how to prepare an effective portfolio and resume.

Multiplayer Online Games (MOGs) have become a new genre of "play culture," integrating communication and entertainment in a playful, computer-mediated environment that evolves through user interaction. This book comprehensively reviews the origins, players, and social dynamics of MOGs, as well as six major empirical research methods used in previous works to study MOGs (i.e., observation/ethnography, survey/interviews, content and discourse analysis, experiments, network analysis, and case studies). It concludes that MOGs represent a highly sophisticated, networked, multimedia and multimodal Internet technology, which can construct entertaining, simultaneous, persistent social virtual worlds for gamers. Overall, the book shows that what we can learn from MOGs is how games and gaming, as ubiquitous activities, fit into ordinary life in today's information society, in the moments where the increased use of media as entertainment, the widespread application of networked information technologies, and participation in new social experiences intersect. Key Features: Contains pertinent knowledge about online gaming: its history, technical features, player characteristics, social dynamics, and research methods Sheds light on the potential future of online gaming, and how this would impact every aspect of our everyday lives - socially, culturally, technologically, and economically Asks promising questions based on cutting-edge research in the field of online game design and development

This book introduces fundamental concepts and principles of 2D and 3D graphics and is written for undergraduate and postgraduate students of computer science, graphics, multimedia, and data science. It demonstrates the use of MATLAB (R) programming for solving problems related to graphics and discusses a variety of visualization tools to generate graphs and plots. The book covers important concepts like transformation, projection, surface generation, parametric representation, curve fitting, interpolation, vector representation, and texture mapping, all of which can be used in a wide variety of educational and research fields. Theoretical concepts are illustrated using a large number of practical examples and programming codes, which can be used to visualize and verify the results. Key Features: Covers fundamental concepts and principles of 2D and 3D graphics Demonstrates the use of MATLAB (R) programming for solving problems on graphics Provides MATLAB (R) codes as answers to specific numerical problems Provides codes in a simple copy and execute format for the novice learner Focuses on learning through visual representation with extensive use of graphs and plots Helps the reader gain in-depth knowledge about the subject matter through practical examples Contains review questions and practice problems with answers for self-evaluation

This book brings together diverse voices from across the field of sustainable human computer interaction (SHCI) to discuss what it means for digital technology to support sustainability and how humans and technology can work together optimally for a more sustainable future. Contemporary digital technologies are hailed by tech companies, governments and academics as leading-edge solutions to the challenges of environmental sustainability; smarter homes, more persuasive technologies, and a robust Internet of Things hold the promise for creating a greener world. Yet, deployments of interactive technologies for such purposes often lead to a paradox: they algorithmically "optimize" heating and lighting of houses without regard to the dynamics of daily life in the home; they can collect and display data that allow us to reflect on energy and emissions, yet the same information can cause us to raise our expectations for comfort and convenience; they might allow us to share best practice for sustainable living through social networking and online communities, yet these same systems further our participation in consumerism and contribute to an ever-greater volume of electronic waste.By acknowledging these paradoxes, this book represents a significant critical inquiry into digital technology's longer-term impact on ideals of sustainability. Written by an interdisciplinary team of contributors this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of human computer interaction and environmental studies.

Computing is ubiquitous and if you think otherwise, that in itself might be the best evidence that it is so. Computers are omnipresent in modern life and the multimedia computing environment of today is becoming more and more seamless. Bringing together contributions from dozens of leading experts, Ubiquitous Multimedia Computing educates readers on Ubi-Media Computing on three levels: infrastructures, where fundamental technologies are being developed; middleware, where the integration of technologies and software systems continues to be defined; and applications, where its concepts are evolving into real-world products and processes. In presenting a wealth of new directions and new technology that is changing the way we communicate, learn, play, and live day by day, this book - Examines various architectures for delivering multimedia content including streaming devices , wireless networks, and various hybrids Looks at rapidly developing sensor technology including wearable computers Demonstrates the use of advanced HCI devices that allow the simplest body gestures to govern increasingly complex tasks Introduces newsputers that take the use of embedded image information in a host of practical directions Looks at how ubiquitous computing can eliminate traffic congestion and improve the efficiency and quality of medical care Looks at how computing is personalizing learning environments and revolutionizing our approach to the three R's. While these pages serve as a timely reference for researchers working in all areas of product development and human computer interaction, they also provide engineers, doctors, and many other professionals, as well as educators and graduate students with a view that reveals the otherwise invisible seams of this age of ubi-media computing.