Category Archives: IRCSET

May 2009 Paper Accepted to HCII 2009

“Interaction Techniques for Binding Smartphones”


Congratulations to Umer on having his paper on Interaction Techniques for Binding Smartphones published in the proceedings of the First International Conference on Human Centered Design 2009. This conference is held as part of HCI International 2009, San Diego, CA, USA, July 19-24, 2009. The proceedings are published in the prestigious Lecture Notes in Computer Science series.

Our paper reports on the use of guided interviews to evaluate the desirability
of different interaction techniques for binding smartphones. We demonstrate
five interaction techniques using storyboard sketches and cardboard
prototypes of iPhones. We discuss the implications of these results for the
design of interaction techniques for smartphones.

April 2009 – P2P (papers and conferences)

New Book Chapter and New Paper

Daniel Cutting first got me interested in P2P computing with implicit group messaging while in Australia. We recently published a new book chapter together entitled Serendipity reloaded: fair loading in event-based messaging in the Handbook of Research on Advanced Distributed Event-Based Systems, Publish/Subscribe and Message Filtering Technologies together [5].

My new graduate student Neil Cowzer in UCD Ireland continues this research in new and interesting ways. His current focus is on addressing the needs of location based services across a P2P network. This is an area of cross over research for me between P2P and location and context awareness [4].

A Peer to Peer system consists of a number (typically very large) of networked computers (peers) which collectively perform an operation where each peer typically has equivalent capabilities and responsibilities. Given the proliferation of peer-to-peer file sharing systems, starting with Napster and more recently the BitTorrent protocol the term has become synonymous with just this activity.

However, the concept of peer to peer computing goes far beyond mundane file exchange. It is the subject of global research and development. These efforts are exploring the use of P2P systems for intensive tasks, globally scalable services and novel applications, that would typically be supported by central servers only. Examples of such applications include Joost (TV), Chinook, PAST, IGM (messaging), Skype (telephone) and SETI@home(research).

I wanted to pass on my congratulations to Neil Cowzer on having his first paper accepted at the 5th International Workshop on Collaborative Peer-to-Peer Systems (COPS 2009) for his paper on GeoIGM: a Location-Aware IGM Platform. In recent years, peer-to-peer systems have gained traction in a number of important areas including; file-sharing, VoIP and scientific research vehicles such as the Grid. In this paper we argue that this merely scratches the surface of the potential of peer-to-peer systems. We propose a novel peer-to-peer system, GeoIGM, well suited to the highly collaborative style of tagging and development of context-aware services, particularly with location[4]. With the provision of two fundamental operations; geographically-scoped multicasting and queries, GeoIGM eases the development of next-generation location-aware systems[1].

I also wanted to note the upcoming deadline in April for the Ninth International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Systems from the 8 – 11 September 2009 to be held in Seattle, Washington, USA [2]. It’s an excellent conference series with a range of research presented, from the highly theoretical in systems demonstrated though simulation alone to clearly applied, real-world results. I’m on the PC again this year and I look forward to an exciting range of papers to review. I’d also like to mention the deadline of next month for AP2PS the First International Conference on Advances in Peer-to-Peer Systems to be held on 11-16 October 2009, in Sliema, Malta [3].

The range of small focused workshops along with leading international conferences demonstrates the strength of research interest and activity in this area beyond the mundane applications noted before.

  1. Cowzer N. and Quigley A., “GeoIGM: a Location-Aware IGM Platform“, 5th International Workshop on Collaborative Peer-to-Peer Systems (COPS 2009)
  2. P2P 2009 the 9th International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Systems from the 8 – 11 September 2009, in Seattle, USA
  3. AP2PS the First International Conference on Advances in Peer-to-Peer Systems, 11-16 October 2009, in Sliema, Malta
  4. Choudhury, T.; Quigley, A.; Strang, Th.; Suginuma, K. (Eds.), Location and Context Awareness, 4th International Symposium, LoCA 2009 Tokyo, Japan, May 7-8, ISBN: 978-3-642-01720-9, LNCS Vol. 5561
  5. Cutting A and Quigley A, Serendipity reloaded: fair loading in event-based messaging, Handbook of Research on Advanced Distributed Event-Based Systems, Publish/Subscribe and Message Filtering Technologies, IGI Global 2009

Dec 2008 Two Conference Papers Accepted.

Myself and three of my PhD students have recently had two papers accepted at leading international conferences. Both will be published in upcoming volumes on the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series.

Firstly, myself Ross, Tom, along with our colleagues Adrian, Simon and Paddy had “Situvis: a visual tool for modeling a user’s behaviour patterns in a pervasive environment” accepted at the Seventh International Conference on Pervasive Computing in Nara Japan. This year the conference had a very low acceptance rate of 18.4% which makes this all the move satisfying personally. The back story to Sitvis is a very interesting one and is a great testament to our new structured PhD program in UCD. Tom developed the core Situvis visualisation framework as part of a project he developed in my InfoVis course in 2007. He worked with Ross on developing it into a graph drawing system by using coupled layouts. We then further developed the idea when Adrian came with the situation and sensor problems and proposed Situvis which we all worked on together. The ebb and flow of ideas in and out of the students areas of core interest goes to show what great outcomes we can have with structured learning.

Secondly, myself and Umer Rashid had a paper accepted at the HCI International Conference 2009 on “Interaction Techniques for Binding Smart Phones: A Desirability Evaluation“. It will be published by Springer in a multi-volume set in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) and Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series. This conference will be held on 19-24 July 09 in San Diego, CA, USA.

Japan and the USA in 2009.. here we come for these and other papers to come…!

Nov 2008 Two CHI 2009 workshop papers accepted.

Myself and members of my research group have had two of our workshop position papers accepted for CHI 2009.

The first paper entitled “Designing for Collaboration: Professional Information Management (PIM) in Research Communities” by Umer Rashid and Dr. Aaron Quigley has been accepted for the CHI 2009 workshop on The Changing Face of Digital Science: New Practices in Scientific Collaborations. The workshop will take place on Sunday, April 5, 2009 in Boston. In this paper, we report on the results of a case study exploring the use of collaborative tools in a research community. We conducted a questionnaire-based survey among 30 researchers to establish their preferences for different tools to collaborate with their research group, school and remote colleagues. Based on the results of this survey, we offer design guidelines for collaboration tools.

The second paper entitled “Do Pattern Languages help us Structure Evaluations in Healthcare Technologies?” by Dr. Julie Doyle, Dr. Aaron Quigley and Prof. Paddy Nixon has been accepted for the proceedings of the CHI (Computer Human Interaction) 2009 workshop ‘Evaluating New Interactions in Healthcare: Challenges and Approaches’.

As healthcare technologies are becoming increasingly pervasive, moving from controlled clinical and laboratory settings to large numbers of home deployments, new challenges arise in evaluating the impact of healthcare technologies and interactions in their context of use. This paper examines the potential benefits of using pattern languages to help structure such evaluations. Pattern languages can capture experience, guidelines and methods for evaluation of new healthcare technologies and ultimately help healthcare professionals and researchers to design effective evaluations.

This workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to share experiences and ideas on how to conduct evaluations that will allow assessment of the overall impact of technology in its context of use. The workshop will take place in Boston, on April 4th 2009.

Nov 2008 Emil Vassev starts as a postdoctoral fellow

Emil VassevWelcome to Dr. Emil Vassev from
Concordia University in Montreal, Canada to the Systems Research Group. Emil recently completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science and his thesis was on ASSL a “Framework for Specification and Code Generation of Autonomic Systems”.

ASSL: Autonomic System Specification Language is a framework that implies a multi-tier structure for specifying autonomic systems. The ASSL framework is defined through formalization tiers. Over these tiers, ASSL provides a layered structure for specifying ASs as formal executable models. ASSL defines an AS with its interaction protocol and autonomic elements.

Earlier this year Emil had a paper with Mike Hinchey the new research director for Lero so we expect this collaboration to continue as new ones develop with us all here in the SRG. The paper was entitled “Towards an ASSL Specification Model for NASA Swarm-Based Exploration Missions.” Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2008).

Emil was awarded a highly competitive IRCSET Postdoctoral Fellowship earlier this year to join me as a postdoc in the SRG. Over the coming weeks Emil will give some informal seminars on his research both here and in Limerick. In time he will give a seminar during an RSS and as a school seminar.

Oct 2008 Neil Cowzer start as an IRCSET funded postgrad

Neil CowzerNeil Cowzer has joined me this week as a postgraduate in the SRG. Neil recently completed his undergraduate in UCD and achieved a 1:1 in BSc Computer Science for his efforts. An ODCSSS 06 alumni, Neil has undertaken numerous research internships; taking part in IBM Extreme Blue 08 as one of their top placed hires and working with the Machine Learning Group (MLG) under the supervision of Pádraig Cunnigham, who Neil continued to work with on his final year project. Neil is based on the 3rd floor in CASL so he can collaborate with other researchers in the SRG.

Neil has been awarded an IRCSET scholarship researching Software Engineering of Pervasive Computing Systems. His initial focus is on the application of dataflow programming principles in pervasive computing, with a view to developing a suitable framework for the development of future pervasive/ubiquitous systems. The SRG has become a hot-bed of development in this area. With this in mind, Neil hopes to collaborate with a number of researchers in the group, in particular we expect Neil to be working closely with Umer Rashid.

June 2008 VGV08 and Congrats to Mike Bennett

VGV logo
Irish Graduate Student Symposium on
Vision, Graphics and Visualisation(VGV08)
June 5th
Trinity College Dublin

On the back of an IRCSET exploratory Graduate Research Education Program
exploratory grant myself and colleagues in Dublin City University and Trinity
College Dublin organised VGV08
in June 2008. Our aim was to provide a stimulating space for young
researchers and Ph.D. students to present the results of their research
and to interact with their scientific peers, in a friendly and constructive environment.

Mike's PosterOne of my postgrads Mike Bennett received the best poster award at this event and
was presented with an award for his poster “Understanding Distance & How Humans
See Interfaces & Designs” from one of our industrial partners.

Thanks to Trinity College Dublin and Gerard Lacey for the lions share of the
organisation on this! It was a great atmosphere and very interesting to see the
work on display. I look forward to following up with students on quadruped animation and
large graph drawing. Thanks also to Gerry for allowing a number of our
ODCSSS research summer interns to attend.

Given the wealth of research across Ireland in Vision, Graphics and Visualisation
I hope this becomes an annual event for academics, graduate students and industry
partners alike! Roll on 2009!

Dec 2007 Umer Rashid starts as IBM/IRCSET funded postgrad

Umer Rashid has joined me this week as a postgrad in the SRG. Umer has a Masters from the U-VR Lab, GIST, Gwangju, South Korea under the supervision of Wontack Woo. He comes to us with a number IEEE, LNCS and HCI publications. His Masters thesis is on Context-based Disclosure of Personal Information in Pervasive Healthcare Using an Ontology-based Context Model. Umer is based on the 3rd floor of the CASLso he can colaborate with with other Ubicomp SRG researchers.

Umer is getting an IRCSET scholarship under the Enterprise Partnership Scheme from IBM and will be working on Human-computer-interaction in ubiquitous computing environments. His initial focus is on the personalization of user interfaces, and privacy and information disclosure issues associated with interaction of wearable computing devices with context-aware services in ubiquitous computing environments. Initially with a focus on instrumented spaces for long term self and remote monitoring by/of elders, using off the shelf wearable monitoring devices. We expect he will be working closely with Tom Holland and a number of other ubiquitous computing researchers in the CASL we expect with IBM and Vincent’s hospital in time.

Oct 2007 Tom Holland starts as IRCSET funded postgrad

I would like to welcome Tom Holland who recently started his Ph.D. with the Systems Research Group in the UCD Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory under my supervision with Prof. Paddy Nixon. Tom is starting his research in the area of richly sensorised pervasive computing environments. Tom has received a full scholarship from the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET). He is already busy at work on the course work component of his structured PhD program, a small Ubisense location project and we have had initial contacts with an industrial partner for collaboration on his research. Tom completed his B.Sc. in Internet Computing at the University of Hull in 2006 and previously spent 3 years in commercial development roles with digital agencies in Newcastle Upon Tyne and most recently with Acknowledgement Ltd. in London. Welcome to the SRG Tom and your first paper deadline is April for UbiComp 2008!