Interactive Paper

a quienes agradezco la ayuda que me han prestado y en especial a mis tutores, Alejandro y José María por su paciencia en las explicaciones, así como por haberme confiado este trabajo a pesar de que no siempre he podido dedicarle todo el tiempo que me hubiese gustado. En último lugar, me gustaría agradecer también a la unidad

DelosDLMS is a prototype of a next-generation Digital Library (DL) management system. It is the result of integrating various specialized DL services provided by partners of the DELOS network of excellence into the OSIRIS platform. OSIRIS is a middleware environment for the reliable and scalable distributed execution of processes. Processes, in turn, are DL applications that are built from the specialized services available in the integrated system. DelosDLMS provides support for content-based retrieval in image, audio, video, and 3D collections and combination of any of these media types with keyword queries. It allows annotating retrieved information, provides a rich set of advanced graphical user interfaces to browse and explore large collections, and supports users in interacting with the system using a speech interface and interactive paper. Finally, it can even be applied in settings where DL content is available in a distributed P2P system.

Contemporary music composition is a highly creative and disciplined activity that requires free expression of ideas and sophisticated computer programming. This paper presents a technique for structured observation of expert creative behavior, as well as Polyphony, a novel interface for systematically studying all phases of computer-aided composition. Polyphony is a unified user interface that integrates interactive paper and electronic user interfaces for composing music. It supports fluid transitions between informal sketches and formal computer-based representations. We asked 12 composers to use Polyphony to compose an electronic accompaniment to a 20-second instrumental composition by Anton Webern. All successfully created a complete, original composition in an hour and found the task challenging but fun. The resulting dozen comparable snapshots of the composition process reveal how composers both adapt and appropriate tools in their own way.

Interactive paper technologies offer new opportunities for supporting the highly individual practices of creative artists, such as contemporary music composers, who express and explore their ideas on both paper and the computer. We introduce PaperComposer, a graphical interface builder that allows users to create a personalized interactive paper interface that they can connect to their own computer-based musical data. We also present an API that facilitates the development of interactive paper components for PaperComposer. We describe one public demonstration of a novel musical interface designed for children and our collaborations with composers to create two novel interactive music interfaces that reflected their individual composition styles.

We introduce the knotty gesture, a simple yet powerful technique for interacting with paper. Knots are tiny circles that can be added to any gesture. Users can leave subtle marks that permit both immediate interaction in the flow of writing and create rich opportunities for future interaction. We identify diverse applications of knotty gestures and explore alternative techniques for interacting with their traces. We conducted two experiments to evaluate the design and recognition heuristics and demonstrated that people can successfully execute knotty gestures, even without feedback. Knotty gestures provide users with a subtle, in-the-flow-of-writing technique for tagging information and subsequently interacting with the paper.

Technologies such as Anoto offer a novel approach to supporting the creative design process, by integrating paper with on-line tools. However, creating successful 'augmented paper' applications requires a detailed understanding of the existing and potential roles of both paper and computers. This paper describes our study of contemporary music composers, who are highly skilled users of both. We challenge common assumptions, particularly that paper's key value lies in its flexibility and describe our early prototypes of 'augmented scores'. We conclude with implications for the design of augmented paper applications that support creative work.

Venture capital (VC) is concerned with seed, startup, and early stage investing in firms involved with innovative products or processes. Existing variance studies of VC provide an incomplete understanding of VC emergence, emphasizing either macro-level enabling conditions or the efficient fund-level operation of the VC cycle. Following , our study focuses on the non-prototypical portion of the VC phenomenon, which is found in weak institutional environments characteristic of many developing countries. In these contexts, VC is more likely to be an unstable organizational form and hence subject to change. As a consequence, new VC forms and emergence processes may arise in these environments, providing data in support of a more complete, processual model of VC emergence. This paper reports findings of an exploratory case study of the VC emergence process in Botswana. Our main contribution is to develop a multi-stage process model of VC emergence. Our model consists of four processes: simultaneity (enabling), coproducing (bonding), diffusing, and replicating via the VC cycle. This model suggests that the establishment of appropriate simultaneity conditions-capital, entrepreneurs and specialized financial institutions-enables the diffusion of VC models and related institutions from other populations. In the presence of an equity gap, government investors and private fund managers need to then cooperate to fill the equity gap, creating the signal necessary for replication of VC funds through the operation of the VC cycle. We also contribute to the VC literature by showing that the diffusion of VC models and related institutions from other populations plays an intermediate role in the emergence process, following the establishment of simultaneity conditions, paralleling coproduction between government investors and fund managers, and preceding the operation of the VC cycle. The resulting model provides a more complete understanding of the VC emergence process and augments existing theoretical perspectives by emphasizing emergence as a dynamic change process. Our model should dampen policymaker enthusiasm for VC as a "silver bullet" in the entrepreneurship development process, suggests the importance of sequencing in the design of government programs supporting VC development, calls attention to the limits of engineering coproduction in stimulating VC emergence in emerging markets contexts, and highlights the importance of an economy's status as a limited access order in facilitating VC emergence. Fund managers and high-potential entrepreneurs can play a vital role in facilitating VC emergence through more careful pre-planning and the establishment of innovation associations.

Este trabajo comienza describiendo cómo se lleva a cabo el proceso de diseño en la ingeniería a través de métodos de pruebalerror y de reglas basadas en la exberiencia. Tras exponer casos que contradicen la común intuición de los proyectistas, recalca la necesidad de utilizar herramientas lógicas de diseño más racionales. La primera que se colenta son los análisis de sensibilidad, que logran guiar al diseñador en los cambios que deben realizarse para mejorar un diseño. A continuación se describen los métodos de optimización por asignación de criterios y los métodos de optimización local, entre ellos el novedoso método de Karmarkar para programación lineal. Esta primera parte del trabajo concluye con un método de optimización global que posibilita encontrar los habituales mínimos locales que existen en los firoblemas no lineales.

Paper has existed as a communications 'platform' for thousands of years. It's 'versioning history' spans papyrus, parchment and pulp, and when paper became a scalable and mass-production item, most famously via the Guttenberg press, it sparked unparalleled social and political change. It's a technology that's had 'impact'. More recently, News and Information -a sector with paper at its core -has seen substantial editorial and commercial disruption from digital communications networks. This paper outlines a collaborative project between journalism, media and technology researchers, and commercial product designers, exploring the potential of paper-based web-connected objects. Our work examines how emergent conductive ink technologies could offer a disruptive alternative to existing media products, and explores how to create, power and populate a connected paper platform, and analyse user activity. Through a range of industry partnerships with newspaper, magazine and book publishers, our research creates new paper affordances and interactions, and positions paper as a digital disruptor.

Despite the wide-ranging recognition that paper remains a pervasive resource for human conduct and collaboration, there has been uncertain progress in developing technologies to bridge the paper-digital divide. In this essay we discuss the design of a technology that interweaves developments in new materials, electronics and software, and seeks to provide a cheap and accessible solution to creating new affinities between digital content, in whatever form, and ordinary paper. The technology and its design draws from a broad range of field studies, including research in classrooms and museums. These delineate the requirements and considerations that inform solutions to enhancing paper whilst preserving its integrity. The paper also discusses a naturalistic experiment, an evaluation in a museum, where we assessed the technology and the solution. We also chart the progressive development of this solution and the ways in which seemingly simple actions and issues became reconstituted as highly complex technical and analytic problems.

We focus on the creative use of paper in the music composition process, particularly the interaction between paper and end-user programming. When expressing musical ideas, composers draw in a precise way, not just sketch. Working in close collaboration with composers, we designed Musink to provide them with a smooth transition between paper drawings and OpenMusic, a flexible music composition tool. Musink's built-in recognizers handle common needs, such as scoping and annotation. Users can also define new gestures and associate them with their own or pre-defined software functions. Musink supports semistructured, delayed interpretation and serves as a customizable gesture browser, giving composers significant freedom to create their own, individualized composition languages and to experiment with music, on-paper and on-line.

The modelling of base burn projectiles has been included in the STANAG 4355 in two different forms. Method 1 (developed by France) and Method 2 (developed by EE.UU). These two methods are completely different and require different treatments. When applying the Modified Point Mass Trajectory Model for base burn projectiles, it is necessary to know a set of additional coefficients detailing the fuel burnt as well as the reducing drag force caused by the increase of the base pressure. The paper shows how it is possible to determinate these coefficients through range, drift and time of motor burnout results, obtained by the analysis of data collected during dynamic range firing. This problem has been reduced to the resolution of a complex problem of optimization. The difficulty of this problem is so great that it has been necessary to develop some tools based on heuristic algorithms (simulated annealing and genetic algorithms).

Durante décadas de investigación en problemas de optimización, se han desarrollado innumerables algoritmos, tanto determinísticos como heurísticos. Aun así, debido a este amplio abanico de posibilidades resulta una tarea compleja determinar cuál de ellos es más adecuado para un problema específico. Se propone en este trabajo una comparativa entre diferentes algoritmos heurísticos de optimización haciendo uso de test estadísticos. Se consideró Simulated Annealing (SA), Algoritmo Genético Simple (sGA), Algoritmos Genético Compacto (cGA) y Deterministic Crowding (DC) aplicados al problema de Selección de Variables para Estimación utilizando Regresión Lineal. Se utilizaron tres casos de prueba, que consisten en la estimación de Radiación Solar, Consumo Eléctrico en la provincia de Tucumán (Argentina), y el tiempo de reaparición de células cancerígenas. Se comprobó que existe suficiente evidencia estadística para afirmar que los algoritmos arrojan resultados significativamente diferentes. Además se concluye que sGA y DC son los algoritmos más apropiados para estos problemas, permitiendo obtener valores de fitness similares siendo sGA ligeramente superior.

In this paper, we analyze the extent to which University-Level Support Mechanisms (ULSMs) and Local-Context Support Mechanisms (LCSMs) complement or substitute for each other in fostering the creation of academic spin-offs. Using a sample of 404 companies spun off from the 64 Italian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics universities (STEM universities) over the 2000-2007 period, we show that the ULSMs' marginal effect on universities' spin-off productivity may be positive or negative depending on the contribution offered by different LCSMs. Specifically, in any given region, ULSMs complement the legislative support offered to high-tech entrepreneurship whereas they have a substitution effect with regard to the amount of regional social capital, regional financial development, the presence of a regional business incubator, regional public R&D expenses as well as the level of innovative performance in the region. Results support the idea that regional settings' idiosyncrasies should be considered for universities to develop effective spin-off support policies. This paper contributes to the debate on the evaluation of economic policies supporting entrepreneurship.

Interactive geographic maps are widely available nowadays. Yet, these maps remain mostly limited to standard interaction contexts and only allow a small panel of expression means to novice users. For example, most available interactive maps only enable users to explore content but not to contribute to the content. On the other hand, the "Smart city" process enlightens the importance of providing ways of expression to the citizens as they are directly affected by urban issues. We introduce a spatial augmented reality map, in which a virtual map is projected on a physical piece of paper. This system, developed for a museum, has two main uses for the users: expressing themselves about their city, and exploring the multiple visions of that city. In a preliminary study we compared interaction techniques for this system based on multi-touch, tangible and spatial modalities for three common map functions: zooming, repositioning the map excerpt, and changing the basemap. Based on the results from this study we designed a new version of this prototype and present future working directions.

Interactive geographic maps are widely available nowadays. Yet, these maps remain mostly limited to standard interaction contexts and only allow a small panel of expression means to novice users. For example, most available interactive maps only enable users to explore content but not to contribute to the content. On the other hand, the " Smart city " process enlightens the importance of providing ways of expression to the citizens as they are directly affected by urban issues. We introduce a spatial augmented reality map, in which a virtual map is projected on a physical piece of paper. This system, developed for a museum, has two main uses for the users: expressing themselves about their city, and exploring the multiple visions of that city. In a preliminary study we compared interaction techniques for this system based on multi-touch, tangible and spatial modalities for three common map functions: zooming, repositioning the map excerpt, and changing the basemap. Based o...

The paper seeks to explore the opportunities created by climate change and mitigation efforts in agriculture sector in India for creating more, newer and better jobs. These new jobs which are termed as green jobs are not always going to be decent jobs and there is also uncertainty about the number of jobs so created vis-à-vis number of jobs destroyed in traditional fossil fuel based economy. Pivotal role played by agriculture in developing country's economy makes it ideal sector to study in this context. There is growing consensus that organic, sustainable agricultural practices can provide synergistic benefits that include adaptation and mitigation of climate change with addressing concerns like livelihood, employment and working conditions. In an emerging country like India, sustainable agriculture can help in meeting twin challenges of food security and job creation. This so called "Double Dividend" can positively affect the thinking of policy makers and public at l...

The strategy pattern decouples algorithms from the class that uses them allowing the algorithms to vary independently. It does not, however, allow algorithms to have different parameters. The solution presented in this paper addresses the case when the algorithms have different sets of parameters, and when the user is allowed to see and modify these parameters for each concrete algorithm before its execution. This is accomplished by introducing special parameter classes which encapsulate algorithm parameters and have certain responsibilities (e.g. boundary values checking). The abstract algorithm class is completely decoupled from parameters letting each concrete algorithm class create its own list of parameter instances which mirrors its parameters. 1.

Technology is used widely to serve education. However progress in transferring note taking into digital form age is slow. The necessity for digital note taking into digital era become importance because information resources were increased extensively where traditional note become insufficient to process these amounts of information. Digital notes are editable, searchable, portable, readable, can be indexed, linked, etc. Massive tools developed to bridge the gap between paper-based and technology-based notes. Unfortunately, these note taking tool still inadequate to replace the traditional approaches of note taking. This study investigates the limitations of typical note taking systems and discusses the implications on the design of future note taking applications. Developing successful note taking applications is a challenge because of the complexity, technology learning dilemma, integrity, and inefficiency issues. These challenges are stated in thesis statement to shape the soluti...

Resumen El algoritmo de Evolución Diferencial (DE) es un método de optimización para problemas complejos. Como todo método de optimización posee parámetros que deben ser debidamente ajustados para proveer soluciones de buena calidad. Entre estos parámetros se encuentra F ∈ [0, ∞), el factor de escala de la mutación, que afecta la velocidad con la cual evoluciona la población. Dado que dicho factor juega un papel importante en la obtención delóptimo global, en el presente trabajo se realiza un estudio de algoritmos de Evolución Diferencial que implementan factor F constante y otros que lo hacen considerando una variación dinámica del parámetro F en función del tiempo. El estudio se realiza sobre un conjunto de funciones escalables ampliamente difundidas y estudiadas por la comunidad de computación evolutiva.

Resumen El algoritmo de Evolución Diferencial (DE) es un método de optimización para problemas complejos. Como todo método de optimización posee parámetros que deben ser debidamente ajustados para proveer soluciones de buena calidad. Entre estos parámetros se encuentra F ∈ [0, ∞), el factor de escala de la mutación, que afecta la velocidad con la cual evoluciona la población. Dado que dicho factor juega un papel importante en la obtención delóptimo global, en el presente trabajo se realiza un estudio de algoritmos de Evolución Diferencial que implementan factor F constante y otros que lo hacen considerando una variación dinámica del parámetro F en función del tiempo. El estudio se realiza sobre un conjunto de funciones escalables ampliamente difundidas y estudiadas por la comunidad de computación evolutiva.

The use of pens in human-computer interaction has been investigated since Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad graphical communication system in the early 1960s. We provide an overview of the major developments in pen-based interaction over the last six decades and compare different hardware solutions and pen-tracking techniques. In addition to pen-based interaction with digital devices, we discuss more recent digital pen and paper solutions where pen and paper-based interaction is augmented with digital information and services. We outline different interface and interaction styles and present various academic as well as commercial application domains where pen-based interaction has been successfully applied. Furthermore, we discuss several issues to be considered when designing pen-based interactions and conclude with an outlook of potential future challenges and directions for penbased human-computer interaction.

Interactive geographic maps are today widely available, but remain mostly limited to standard interaction contexts. We introduce a spatial augmented reality map, in which a virtual map is projected on a physical piece of paper. In a preliminary study we compared interaction techniques based on multi-touch, tangible and spatial modalities for three common map functions: zooming, panning, and changing the basemap. Our results suggest that object-based and spatial interaction may be advantageous over multi-touch in our augmented reality setup.

IntroductionRecently, in the literature, the number of researchers, academics and professionals in business science and management that have been analyzed and discussed, through theoretical studies and empirical, the impac t of family businesses in different activities and operation of businesses, has increased; among their investigations on social responsibility (Dyer, 2006). Therefore, it is more often to find in the literature published papers comparing the performance between family enterprises and non-relatives, through the return of investments (Anderson & Reeb, 2003), sales growth (Daily & Dollinger, 1992; Gallo, Tapies & Cappuyns, 2000; Chrisman, Chua & Litz, 2004), job satisfaction (Beehr, Drexler & Faulkner, 1997), innovation (Tanewski, Prajogo & Sohal, 2003) and lately, social responsibility (Deniz & Cabrera, 2005; Dyer & Whetten, 2006).While only a few theoretical and empirical studies that analyze social responsibility in family businesses have been published, there are...

Tablet PCs are a new generation of notebook computers which provide multimodal input options of pen, voice and keyboard. Recently, these portable and flexible Tablet PCs have attracted attention as a potential tool in academic environments. This paper reviews the current use of Tablet PCs in teaching computer science and software engineering courses, presenting lectures and papers, and creating peer-review comments. The paper also presents applications of Tablet PCs in teaching and research at our university, the University of Canberra, Australia. These applications include marking assignments and reports, and developing signature verification applications.

This paper discusses an evaluation of the MEAD prototype, a multiuser interface generator tool particularly for use in the context of Air Traf%c Control (ATC). The procedures we adopted took the form of opportunistic and informal evaluation sessions with small user groups, including Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOS). We argue that informal procedures are a powerful and cost effective method for dealing with specific evaluation issues in the context of CSCW but that wider issues are more problematic. Most notably, identifying the "validity" or otherwise of CSCW systems requires that the context of use be taken seriously, necessitating a fundamental re-appraisal of the concept of evaluation.

The activity of air traffic flow management is complex and involves a large number of actors. The increase in the volume and complexity of air traffic has also led to the increase in the importance of this activity: it is indeed more economical to make a plane wait for the ground than to turn it in flight in order to absorb deadlines to meet a rate of arrival at the runway. Anticipating potential airspace capacity exceedances from estimated aircraft arrival times to derive new takeoff times for a particular set of flights is very complex. Moreover, the number and the level of adequacy of the current tools for this type of activity is quite limited : those are independent without any real consistency. In this context, it is interesting to propose a dedicated interface that can provide relevant support for this activity. It is with this objective that the design of the IODA prototype (Innovative Operations for Departures and Arrivals) was considered. This paper aims at illustrating through the IODA tools and its design the application of principles in terms of representations and innovative interactions to a flow management working position.

Mediante la combinación de conceptos de computación evolutiva y regresión no lineal haciendo uso de métodos de kernel, se logra proponer un algoritmo híbrido de regresión simbólica, útil en la construcción de modelos de inferencia. El presente trabajo describe el camino de investigación recorrido hasta llegar al planteamiento de un algoritmo que, inspirado en el funcionamiento del algoritmo de regresión simbólica original, genera modelos matemáticos que se adaptan a datos experimentales de forma satisfactoria. Con el fin de mostrar la utilidad de esta técnica de modelado, se introduce el concepto de sensórica inferencial y se evalúa el desempeño de la proposición en este contexto. Los modelos matemáticos generados por el algoritmo propuesto muestran una reducción significativa en el valor del error de estimación respecto a modelos obtenidos mediante la ejecución del algoritmo de regresión simbólica original.

Computer Designing Innovative Reading Experiences for a Museum Exhibition T he Research in Experimental Documents (RED) group at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is a small, multidisciplinary team that brings together researchers skilled in video production, mechanical engineering, interface design, architecture, cultural theory, sound engineering, cartooning, writing, lighting, programming, industrial design, and graphic arts to design and build real working objects and prototypes. It explores new document types and

Modes allow a few inputs to invoke many operations, yet if a user misclassifies or forgets the state of a system, modes can result in errors. Spring-loaded modes (quasimodes) maintain a mode while the user holds a control such as a button or key. The Springboard is an interaction technique for tablet computers that extends quasimodes to encompass multiple tool modes in a single spring-loaded control. The Springboard allows the user to continue holding down a nonpreferred-hand command button after selecting a tool from a menu as a way to repeatedly apply the same tool. We find the Springboard improves performance for both a local marking menu and for a non-local marking menu ("lagoon") at the lower left corner of the screen. Despite the round-trip costs incurred to move the pen to a tool lagoon, a keystroke-level analysis of the true cost of each technique reveals the local marking menu is not significantly faster.

Knowledge workers use paper extensively for document reviewing and note-taking due to its versatility and simplicity of use. As users annotate printed documents and gather notes, they create a rich web of annotations and cross references. Unfortunately, as paper is a static media, this web often gets trapped in the physical world. While several digital solutions such as XLibris [15] and Digital Desk [18] have been proposed, they suffer from a small display size or onerous hardware requirements. To address these limitations, we propose PapierCraft, a gesture-based interface that allows users to manipulate digital documents directly using their printouts as proxies. Using a digital pen, users can annotate a printout or draw command gestures to indicate operations such as copying a document area, pasting an area previously copied, or creating a link. Upon pen synchronization, our infrastructure executes these commands and presents the result in a customized viewer. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of the PapierCraft command system, and report on early user feedback.

In laboratory studies, multi-surface slate-based reading systems have shown great promise as platforms for active reading. However, the true utility of such a system can only be ascertained through the rigors of real world use. We conducted month-long deployments of a multi-slate reading system to support the active reading activities of graduate students in the humanities. During these deployments we documented how the added display area and increased micro-mobility of multiple devices enhanced navigation and reading comfort. We also noted the essential role of writing and annotation. Finally, we observed how electronic affordances like synchronization across devices helped provide functionality that would not have been possible with paper documents. This paper contributes new information about how electronic reading solutions fit into real world reading workflows.

Current paper-based interfaces such as PapierCraft, provide very little feedback and this limits the scope of possible interactions. So far, there has been little systematic exploration of the structure, constraints, and contingencies of feedback-mechanisms in paper-based interaction systems for paper-only environments. We identify three levels of feedback: discovery feedback (e.g., to aid with menu learning), status-indication feedback (e.g., for error detection), and task feedback (e.g., to aid in a search task). Using three modalities (visual, tactile, and auditory) which can be easily implemented on a pen-sized computer, we introduce a conceptual matrix to guide systematic research on pen-top feedback for paper-based interfaces. Using this matrix, we implemented a multimodal pen prototype demonstrating the potential of our approach. We conducted an experiment that confirmed the efficacy of our design in helping users discover a new interface and identify and correct their errors.

Stitching is a new interaction technique that allows users to combine pen-operated mobile devices with wireless networking by using pen gestures that span multiple displays. To stitch, a user starts moving the pen on one screen, crosses over the bezel, and finishes the stroke on the screen of a nearby device. Properties of each portion of the pen stroke are observed by the participating devices, synchronized via wireless network communication, and recognized as a unitary act performed by one user, thus binding together the devices. We identify the general requirements of stitching and describe a prototype photo sharing application that uses stitching to allow users to copy images from one tablet to another that is nearby, expand an image across multiple screens, establish a persistent shared workspace, or use one tablet to present images that a user selects from another tablet. We also discuss design issues that arise from proxemics, that is, the sociological implications of users collaborating in close quarters.

We present a quantitative analysis of delimiters for pen gestures. A delimiter is "something different" in the input stream that a computer can use to determine the structure of input phrases. We study four techniques for delimiting a selection-action gesture phrase consisting of lasso selection plus marking-menu-based command activation. Pigtail is a new technique that uses a small loop to delimit lasso selection from marking (Fig. 1). Handle adds a box to the end of the lasso, from which the user makes a second stroke for marking. Timeout uses dwelling with the pen to delimit the lasso from the mark. Button uses a button press to signal when to delimit the gesture. We describe the role of delimiters in our Scriboli pen interaction testbed, and show how Pigtail supports scope selection, command activation, and direct manipulation all in a single fluid pen gesture.

Paper persists as an integral component of active reading and other knowledge-worker tasks because it provides ease of use unmatched by digital alternatives. Paper documents are light to carry, easy to annotate, rapid to navigate, flexible to manipulate, and robust to use in varied environments. Interactions with paper documents create rich webs of annotation, cross reference, and spatial organization. Unfortunately, the resulting webs are confined to the physical world of paper and, as they accumulate, become increasingly difficult to store, search, and access. XLibris [Schilit et al. 1998] and similar systems address these difficulties by simulating paper with tablet PCs. While this approach is promising, it suffers not only from limitations of current tablet computers (e.g., limited screen space) but also from loss of invaluable paper affordances. In this article, we describe PapierCraft, a gesture-based command system that allows users to manipulate digital documents using paper...

A frequent need of museums is to provide visitors with context-sensitive information about exhibits in the form of maps, or scale models. This paper suggests an augmentedreality approach for supplementing physical surfaces with digital information, through the use of pieces of plain paper that act as personal, location-aware, interactive screens. The technologies employed are presented, along with the interactive behavior of the system, which was instantiated and tested in the form of two prototype setups: a wooden table covered with a printed map and a glass case containing a scale model. The paper also discusses key issues stemming from experience and observations in the course of qualitative evaluation sessions.

The field of electronic aid for disabled people has been growing constantly with many new innovations being added every year. The need for electronic aid in alternative and augmentative communication (ACC) is becoming increasingly important. Devices which describe extra ways of helping people who find it hard to communicate by speech or writing are being introduced into the market every year. A next generation device for alternative and augmentative communication which shall be used in rehabilitation therapies for speech-impaired people is being developed at EPFL-IMT. This device includes smart image processing capabilities to offer new possibilities to train users and to let them express in a more intuitive and interactive manner. The user acquires an image (pictogram, picture or barcode). The device recognizes the image and plays its corresponding pre-recorded audio sequence. This device is intended to be used by language re-education professionals and specialized educators in the...

DelosDLMS is a prototype of a next-generation Digital Library (DL) management system. It is the result of integrating various specialized DL services provided by partners of the DELOS network of excellence into the OSIRIS platform. OSIRIS is a middleware environment for the reliable and scalable distributed execution of processes. Processes, in turn, are DL applications that are built from the specialized services available in the integrated system. DelosDLMS provides support for content-based retrieval in image, ...