Jun HU :: HU, Jun

Excellent B2 project work by Noa van den Brink, Teun van Acker and Renate Voss

The municipality of Eindhoven is always working on innovation and are working with new IoT technologies and sensors in public spaces, based on gathering and analyzing people’s data to improve the quality of life in the city.

At Stratumseind, there is such a sensor network which gathers data to solve issues in daily lives like safety. As local government, Eindhoven has to ensure that use of technology and data in the public space is visible, transparent, open, secure and respects the privacy of individuals and communities, which means that it is anonymous at all time. It is known that in Eindhoven a number of IoT / sensor networks in the public space work independently and are used by different parties and stakeholders. However, not everyone is aware of this sensor network and it has become clear that visualization and interaction with IoT in public spaces is a challenge. Especially, now privacy has become on of the main hot topics in the rapid digitizing world, think about The General Data Protection Regulation which is introduced in the EU in May 2018, (local) governments are looking for ways to implement new technologies in a transparent and democratic way. Therefore, as a leading municipality, Eindhoven wants to make it known and clear to everyone where the measuring equipment is located, what is measured and by whom, to ensure the public interest and stimulate innovation with the use of new technologies. …

Gaze has important social meanings in face-to-face communication. A sighted person often uses various eye gestures to convey nonverbal information that a blind conversation partner cannot access and respond. In many examples, the eyes of blind people seem unattractive, and often with deformities, which make the eye appearances less appealing to sighted people. These factors influence the smooth communication between blind and sighted people.

Our research is to simulate the gaze for blind people, aiming at improving the quality of face-to-face communication between blind and sighted people. In this dissertation, the purpose of simulating the gaze includes two aspects: to assist blind people to perceive the gaze from the sighted and to simulate the appropriate gaze for blind people as a visual reaction.

See more at
http://www.mindthestep.nl/lightsit.html

Although the ‘new way of working’ has many advantages, the more intelligent use of time, space and resources often results in (even) less exercise and more stress. The solution? A cushion filled with sensors that discreetly register your breathing patterns and a light strip integrated in the monitor stand. In other words: LightSit. Have you sat without moving for too long? The block of light that repeatedly moves from left to right supports stretching exercises for your back. Suffering from stress? The alternating bright and dim light invites you to concentrate on your breathing. Information is power! 

PhD Thesis by Bin Yu

Mainly provoked by increasing stress-related health problems and driven by recent technological advances in human-computer interaction (HCI), the ubiquitous physiologically-relevant information will potentially transform the role of biofeedback from clinical treatment to a readily available tool for personal stress management. The primary motivation for this thesis is to bring biofeedback
techniques closer to everyday use so that the average people can harness it more intuitively, effortlessly and comfortably.

PhD thesis by Wan Jou She

Previous bereavement-related literature indicated that around one out of ten (9.8%) bereaved individuals could suffer from a more severe and protracted grief, entitled Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) in the DSM-V, or Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) in ICD-11. To precisely differentiate the prolonged grievers from the normal grievers, a minimum six months is required, and to offer psychotherapeutic intervention to normal grievers indifferently could instead hamper their natural coping mechanism. The fact conicts with the fact that the severely maladapted grievers might need psychotherapeutic support in a more timely manner, and might even benefit from earlier intervention. This dilemma indicates that there is a need for a screening method in the first six months of bereavement.

Based on the above discussion, the objective of the thesis is to develop a screening method for prolonged grief disorder that is empirically tested and can be embedded in an internet-based
application.

[FBP by Trudie Bosse]

By using Augmented Reality, I tried to increase product appreciation by consumers. For my client Waar, I designed a system wherein users learn about the production of chocolate. In a store, they can download an app, and with this app, they can see the production process projected on a cabinet which displays chocolate. The concept was very positively received by the Client and by participants of user tests. Although the app does have some points of improvement, it works on a fundamental level.

[FBP project by Linde van Beers]

Community Makers is a platform that has as a goal to grow, strengthen and connect communities of people who are actively improving their environments. They can use the app to start projects and find collaborators, both in their own social media network and in their physical neighbourhood. The app helps manage the project with a shared task list and asks project members to take pictures throughout the process regularly. From these pictures, it creates a time-lapse video of the project being built up from the ground. Providing a nice memento that can also be shared to inspire others. This video is an important feature as it both helps strengthen intrinsic motivators such as pride and sense of accomplishment and contributes towards getting even more people enthusiastic about improving their neighbourhoods.

PhD Thesis by Chao Wang

The road environment can be seen as a social situation: In each journey, we encounter other drivers and need to coordinate with them to share the infrastructure. A traditional physical communication method, such as car-body language, lights, horn and speed are the most frequently used means to exchange information, limiting both the range and the bandwidth of the connectivity. This situation may lead to two adverse effects: more conflict in sharing the road and social isolation while driving.

Nowadays, everywhere available connectivity, the broad penetration of social network services and the increasing utility of advanced humanmachine interaction technology, provide new possibilities for enhancing the communication between drivers on the road, enabling social information to pass through the steel shell of the cars without the physical restriction. In this research, we generated, prototyped and evaluated multiple novel social applications …

PhD Thesis by Kadian Davis

…This dissertation employs a user-centered design approach within a multidisciplinary framework, which includes aspects of human-computer interaction, social psychology, cognition, signal processing, and pervasive computing for the design, development, deployment, and validation of bidirectional activity peripheral displays to support social connectedness. Throughout this dissertation, we exploit a human-centered approach to actively involve impending ageing and caregiver users in our design, development, and validation process. Traditional ethnographic techniques such as interviews and observation, accompanied by contemporary techniques such as co-constructing stories were applied to acquire a holistic understanding of the users in context and assist prospective users to imagine user requirements and envision future usage possibilities within AAL environments…

Article published in IEEE Access

The emergence of ubiquitous sensing and the Internet of Things (IoT) have inspired the
development of ‘‘smart’’ everyday objects, which offer tremendous opportunities for maintaining the quality
of life in ambient assisted living (AAL) environments. Inspired by the future possibilities of connected
everyday devices, we envision a peripheral activity-based awareness system that captures human activity
information and renders this information to enhance context awareness and support social connectedness
between the elderly and their caregivers…