This paper presents an augmented reality environment for students' improved learning, which is based on unobtrusive monitoring of the natural reading and writing process. This environment, named SESIL, is able to perform recognition of book pages and of specific elements of interest within a page, as well as to perceive interaction with actual books and pens/pencils, without requiring any special interaction device. As a result, unobtrusive, context - aware student assistance can be provided. In this way, the learning process can be enhanced during reading with the retrieval and presentation of related material and, during writing, by the provision of assistance to accomplish writing tasks whenever appropriate. The SESIL environment is evaluated in terms of robustness, accuracy and usability.

This paper presents an interactive desk that augments physical books that are placed upon its surface with multimedia content and interactive applications. Such content is dynamically displayed in augmentation to the currently open page of the book, that is, aligned in realtime with its 2D orientation upon the desk. The rendered applications are controlled by the users with the use of a stylus, both through contact with the book or desk, as well as, through a small vocabulary of gestures performed with the stylus. The evaluation of the accuracy, robustness, and performance of the proposed computer vision modules supporting this interaction are reported through quantitative experiments. In addition, the system usability was validated and the suitability of educational applications was explored through pilot applications, which include music and digital animation on pages, content-based multimedia presentation, context-based online search, as well as, note-taking through handwriting.

This paper reports on the results of a user-based evaluation that was conducted on a 3D virtual environment that supports diverse interaction techniques. More specifically, the interaction techniques that were evaluated were touch, gestures (hands and legs) and the use of a smart object. The goal of the experiment was to assess the effectiveness of each interaction modes as a means for the user to complete common tasks within the application. A comparison is attempted in order to provide an insight to the suitability of each technique and direct future research in the area.

Technological advancements and contemporary learning theories dictate the need for redesigning the school environment to emded technology in a seamless way. This paper describes an approach towards the development and modernization of the future classroom, by redesigning the student desk. A technology-augemented desk was designed following an iterative approach, leading to the creation and evaluation of several alternative solutions.

Even though surface morphology is always taken into account when assessing clinically pigmented skin lesions, it is not captured by most modern imaging systems using digital imaging. Our aim is to develop a novel three-dimensional (3D) imaging technique to record detailed information of the surface anatomy of melanocytic lesions that will enable improved classification through digital imaging. The apparatus consists of three high-resolution cameras, a light source, and accompanying software. Volume measurements of specific phantoms using volumetric tubes render slightly lower values than those obtained by our 3D imaging system (mean%±SD, 3.8%±0.98, P<0.05). To examine the reproducibility of the method, sequential imaging of melanocytic lesions is carried out. The mean%±SD differences of area, major axis length, volume, and maximum height are 2.1%±1.1, 0.9%±0.8, 3.8%±2.9, and 2.5%±3.5, respectively. Thirty melanocytic lesions are assessed, including common and dysplastic nevi and melanomas. There is a significant difference between nevi and melanomas in terms of variance in height and boundary asymmetry (P<0.001). Moreover, dysplastic nevi have significantly higher variances in pigment density values than common nevi (P<0.001). Preliminary data suggest that our instrument has great potential in the evaluation of the melanocytic lesions. However, these findings should be confirmed in larger-scale studies.

An active field of research today is the technological enrichment of everyday activities using augmented reality and ambient intelligence technologies. To this end, augmenting dinner tables is a challenging task, requiring a high-quality user experience unobtrusively supporting and enhancing the user’s main goal: eating and socializing. This work presents an augmented restaurant table, facilitating customers’ ordering and enhancing their experience through entertainment and socialization features, as well as through interaction with physical objects placed upon the table surface.

Touchless remote interaction empowers users to interact with systems at a distance without the burden of actually coming to physical contact with any tangible object. The research presented in this paper focuses on motion-based interaction in public spaces through hand detection using Microsoft’s Kinect, in order to allow natural interaction in mid-air. The paper presents the development of a system that allows browsing and exploring large collections of multimedia information (images and videos).

This paper discusses the contribution of an Ambient Intelligence (AmI) facility towards adopting, promoting and mainstreaming Design for All principles and approaches. Design for All is fostered through the multidisciplinary approach that is adopted, the scientific exchange and experimentation actively engaging researchers, the capabilities offered by AmI environments towards supporting multimodal interaction and multimedia output, the actual involvement of representative users, as well as the networking activities that are ensued.

This paper leverages previous work on the concept of smart object federations and proposes a new dynamic programming language for implementing and simulating smart objects and their interactions. Following their description in the proposed programming language, smart objects can be fully simulated and used for describing ambient intelligence scenarios. In this context, the contributions of the paper are two-fold: (a) the introduction of a new programming language whose runtime semantics allows for a simple and effective description of smart objects, and (b) the description of meaningful interaction strategies, that are implemented in the proposed language, through which executable smart object federations can be used for simulating and implementing ambient intelligence scenarios.

In this paper we focus on generative model-driven engineering (MDE) tools and explore the notion of incorporating their deployment directly within the program source through metaprogramming. Our approach is based on the following principles: (i) the MDE tool is invoked as part of the metaprogram evaluation; (ii) instead of generating code, the MDE tool generates source fragments as abstract syntax trees (ASTs); (iii) the generated source fragments are directly inserted into the main program source through generator macros of the metaprogram; and (iv) the resulting program that incorporates both model code and custom application code can be normally compiled to produce the final application. Using this methodology, the metaprogram practically operates as an interactive editor for the program itself. We assess the validity of our approach with proof-of-concept case studies where all MDE deployment is performed through metaprogramming.