Search results for "TASK"

Designing for Exploratory Search on Touch Devices

2015

Exploratory search confront users with challenges in expressing search intents as the current search interfaces require investigating result listings to identify search directions, iterative typing, and reformulating queries. We present the design of Exploration Wall, a touch-based search user interface that allows incremental exploration and sense-making of large information spaces by combining entity search, flexible use of result entities as query parameters, and spatial configuration of search streams that are visualized for interaction. Entities can be flexibly reused to modify and create new search streams, and manipulated to inspect their relationships with other entities. Data compr…

Saliency Based Image Cropping

2013

Image cropping is a technique that is used to select the most relevant areas of an image, discarding the useless ones. Handmade selection, especially in case of large photo collections, is a time consuming task. Automatic image cropping techniques may help users, suggesting to them which part of the image is the most relevant, according to specific criteria. We suppose that the most visually salient areas of a photo are also the most relevant ones to the users. In this paper we present an extended version of our previously proposed method, to extract the saliency map of an image, which is based on the analysis of the distribution of the interest points of the image. Three different interest…

Multimodal Mean Adaptive Backgrounding for Embedded Real-Time Video Surveillance

2007

Automated video surveillance applications require accurate separation of foreground and background image content. Cost sensitive embedded platforms place realtime performance and efficiency demands on techniques to accomplish this task. In this paper we evaluate pixel-level foreground extraction techniques for a low cost integrated surveillance system. We introduce a new adaptive technique, multimodal mean (MM), which balances accuracy, performance, and efficiency to meet embedded system requirements. Our evaluation compares several pixel-level foreground extraction techniques in terms of their computation and storage requirements, and functional accuracy for three representative video sequ…

Time-Constrained Node Visit Planning for Collaborative UAV-WSN Distributed Applications.

2022

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are often studied as tools to perform data collection from Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Path planning is a fundamental aspect of this endeavor. Works in the current literature assume that data are always ready to be retrieved when the UAV passes. This operational model is quite rigid and does not allow for the integration of the UAV as a computational object playing an active role in the network. In fact, the UAV could begin the computation on a first visit and retrieve the data later. Potentially, the UAV could orchestrate the distributed computation to improve its performance, change its parameters, and even upload new applications to the sensor network…

Input for baroreflex analysis: which blood pressure signal should be used?

2022

The baroreflex (BR) is an important physiological regulatory mechanism which reacts to blood pressure perturbations with reflex changes of target variables such as the heart period (electrocardiogram derived RR interval) or the peripheral vascular resistance (PVR). Evaluation of cardiac chronotropic (RR as a target variable) and vascular resistance (target PVR) BR arms was in previous studies mainly based on the use of the spontaneous variability of the systolic or diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP), respectively, as the input signals. The use of other blood pressure measures such as the mean blood pressure (MBP) as an input signal for BR analysis is still under investigation. Making the a…

Insegnare attraverso l'interazione, insegnare l'interazione. Il caso del task-based Language teaching and learning

2014

Contesti di apprendimento guidato a confronto. Idee per un modello di analisi dell’interazione nel Task-Based Language Learning

2014

The aim of this chapter is to compare the types of interaction that take place in two different contexts of L2 Italian learning. In the first context learners attend a task-based language learning (TBLL) course, in the second they attend a course based on a more generic communicative approach. Our hypothesis is that different interaction patterns may be observed in relation in different teaching contexts. Our analysis shows that this is indeed the case. These results may help to consider the importance of the method as a factor in guided learning contexts.

Activation of the vocational and personal development (ADVP): an innovative educational orientation methodology.

2015

Progress in orientation educational practices in Italy has led to the emergence of several methods designed to help the development of personal and career aims. The several evaluations, which have been carried out, show that changes are first cognitive and specifically involve professional representations: experimental subjects used more descriptors and different descriptors to represent an occupation which interests them. These changes are also cognitive with participants stating that they have been involved in experiences and in activities, have sought information, etc. These initial results once again raise the question of instruments needing to be developed for such evaluation, that of …

Aging and prospective memory: the role of working memory and monitoring processes

2008

Background and aims: Remembering to execute an earlier planned action is essential in everyday life, and is a prerequisite for independent living in old age. The purpose of the present study was to determine the influence of age in performing a prospective memory (PM) task and to analyze the differential contribution of working memory and attentional monitoring demands. Methods: In Experiment 1, a group of young and two groups of old adults were assigned to one of two low-demanding conditions: a picture-naming task (only-Naming) and a picture-naming plus a PM task (Naming+PM). In Experiment 2, a group of young and two groups of old adults performed one of two high-demanding conditions, in w…

A study of temporal estimation from the perspective of the Mental Clock Model.

2009

M. Cardaci's (2000) Mental Clock Model maintains that a task requiring a low mental workload is associated with an acceleration of perceived time, whereas a task requiring a high mental workload is associated with a deceleration. The authors examined the predictions of this model in a musical listening condition in which musical pieces were audible in several structural complexities. To measure the effects of musical complexity on time estimation, the authors used retrospective and prospective time-estimation paradigms. For the retrospective paradigm, the authors invited participants to listen to a musical piece and then estimate its duration. For the prospective paradigm, the authors invit…