Sensoring the Future: Complex Geographies of Connectivity and Communication

Visions of an interconnected future are on the rise that foresee technologies moving toward ubiquitous “everywhere” computing and the rise of the “Internet of Things.” This article examines emerging trends in informational connectivity that indicates shifts toward upcoming scenarios of re-imagined geographies and spatial landscapes that are sensored and networked. I examine how the relationships, processes, and flows between people, physical objects, and the environment will make implicit information explicit and engagement between the physical and the digital more commonplace. These are the scenarios presented by emerging applications of location-specific, informationally augmented objects: a real-time sensored future.     

Emotion development system by interacting with human EEG and natural scene understanding

In this paper, we propose a mental development system for understanding the emotional status of humans, and sharing emotions with human subjects. According to the relationship between emotional factors and characteristics of an image, we incorporate the fuzzy concept to extract emotional features using L^*C^*H^* color and orientation information. On the other hand, we also consider the EEG signals which are stimulated by natural stimuli to form the semantic emotional features as well. Emotionally relevant features are firstly clustered into two categories with degrees of belongingness to each cluster to initialize the membership functions of a neuro-fuzzy system. The IF-THEN rules of a neuro-fuzzy system to understand the positive and negative human emotions will be constructed by interacting with human. Then the system attempts to extend the number of understandable emotion. Through the time, the system sub-clusters the emotional features so that the number of membership function of the neuro-fuzzy network will increase to incorporate more complicated human expertise considering more human emotions. Using such a developmental process, the proposed system can develop a mental ability to understand more complex human emotions by mining the characteristics of emotional features and interacting with its environment.     

itsme: Interaction Design Innovating Workstations

Background  In the last 30 years, there has been little innovation in workstations. The desktop metaphor has become the standard user interface, with its pros (e.g., ease of learning) and cons (e.g., interaction constraints for skilled users, lack of context awareness). Objectives  In this paper, we present itsme, an Italian initiative to design the next-generation workstation. Interaction design is the basis of the project, as well as the involvement of a wide community of contributing users. Results  The early design phases of the project led to the definition of a new metaphor for personal computing, based on stories and venues. The metaphor is being adopted for the development of a novel front-end for the Linux operating system, aimed at fulfilling the needs and desires of knowledge workers.

The Hennessy–Milner equivalence for continuous time stochastic logic with mu-operator

A continuous stochastic logic with a μ-operator μCSL is defined, and an interpretation through stochastic relations is proposed. We investigate morphisms for models of μCSL, showing that the associated congruences can be used for an investigation of bisimilarity. The Hennessy–Milner equivalence for μCSL is discussed, and it is shown that models are equivalent iff they are bisimilar, using a general criterion for bisimilarity from the theory of stochastic relations.     

Bidirectional cognitive computing method supported by cloud technology

To realize the bidirectional cognitive computing supported by cloud technology, the cloud model is taken as a bidirectional cognitive computing model based on probability and statistics, a bidirectional cognitive calculation method is constructed, and the bidirectional cognitive conversion between concept connotation and extension is studied. In view of the defects in the existing backward cloud conversion algorithm, two stable multistep backward cloud conversion algorithms are proposed, which lays the foundation for the realization of a stable bidirectional cognitive calculation process. A bidirectional cognitive computing model is proposed, which combines the characteristics of human cognition and the bidirectional cognitive conversion algorithm to simulate bidirectional cognitive computing process based on concept by means of calculation. Moreover, the application of bidirectional cognitive transform algorithm in image segmentation is studied combined with the characteristics of human image cognition. It is also compared with the classical algorithm and methods based on cloud model. The results show that the proposed method has lower mean error and is obviously better than other algorithms, which fully proves the effectiveness of the method.     

Incorporating reflection into computing classes: models and challenges

Literature has shown that the use of reflective practice is one way to assist students to understand and adjust to the expectations demanded by higher education. However, the implementation of reflective practice within the classroom can be challenging especially more so for the science, technology, engineering and mathematics discipline. It is often the case that reflective exercises are incorporated into the classrooms without further thought beyond the assignment of a reflective journal and students are asked to reflect without being taught how. This paper reviews existing models of reflection and discusses its application to the field of computing education particularly in the design of class activities to train students to reflect. Existing literature on how reflective activities are incorporated into assessments and classroom activities for different purposes are also reviewed to determine factors that contribute to its successful implementation in the classroom.     

Populations of spiking neurons for reservoir computing: Closed loop control of a compliant quadruped

Compliant robots can be more versatile than traditional robots, but their control is more complex. The dynamics of compliant bodies can however be turned into an advantage using the physical reservoir computing framework. By feeding sensor signals to the reservoir and extracting motor signals from the reservoir, closed loop robot control is possible. Here, we present a novel framework for implementing central pattern generators with spiking neural networks to obtain closed loop robot control. Using the FORCE learning paradigm, we train a reservoir of spiking neuron populations to act as a central pattern generator. We demonstrate the learning of predefined gait patterns, speed control and gait transition on a simulated model of a compliant quadrupedal robot.     

Weaving cognition into the internet-of-things: Application to water leaks

Despite the growing interest in the Internet-of-Things, many organizations remain reluctant to integrating things into their business processes. Different reasons justify this reluctance including things’ limited capabilities to act upon the cyber-physical surrounding in which they operate. To address this specific limitation, this paper examines thing empowerment with cognitive capabilities that would make them for instance, selective of the next business processes in which they would participate. The selection is based on things’ restrictions like limitedness and goals to achieve like improved reputation. For demonstration purposes, water leaks are used as a case study. A BPEL-based business process driving the fixing of water leaks is implemented involving different cognitive things like moisture sensor.     

Ubiquitous Personality-Trait Concepts in 13 Diverse and Isolated Languages: A Cluster–Classification Approach

There is longstanding interest in the generalizability of personality across diverse cultures. To investigate the generalizability of personality concepts, we examined the English translations of individual-difference entries from the dictionaries of 12 small-scale societies previously studied for ubiquity of individual differences plus the dictionary of an additional society not previously studied in this manner. These 13 societies are highly diverse in geographical location, culture, and language family; their languages developed in isolation from modern-world languages. The goal of our exploratory research was to discover ubiquitous personality concepts in these 13 independent societies and their languages, providing a window into personality concepts across a broad range of cultures and languages. This study used clusters of empirically related terms (e.g. brave, courageous, and daring), based on a taxonomy of English-language personality concepts that consisted of 100 personality-trait clusters. English-language definitions of dictionary entries from the 13 languages were matched to the meanings of the synonym clusters. The cluster–classification method uncovered nine ubiquitous personality concepts, plus six that were present in at least 12 of the 13 languages. The nine ubiquitous personality concepts include some not previously identified and suggest a core of possibly universal concepts. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology