Exergames to study psychomotor factors of children with ADHD: Preliminary findings

Exergaming is considered an effective way to promote physical exercising for young children. Previous work has argued in favor of using exergaming to help with health problems such as obesity, or to contribute with brain maturation, which may affect motor and cognitive abilities. In this work, we describe the preliminary results of a study focused on observing the psychomotor factors exposed by a child with ADHD attending a public primary school. The case of study is an eleven-year-old girl who attends a public primary school but who receives academic support from special education therapists. An off-the-shelf exergame was selected based on its instructional and physical activation features, which the child played with for six weeks. The exergame meets its aim to stimulate psychomotor factors. Attention, speed of reaction, body posture, temporospatial and dissociation skills are categories used for video analysis. Preliminary results seem to indicate that the child’s interaction with the game has produced positive outcomes for reading comprehension, writing, memory, and visuomotor skills. CUMANES and MABC-2 are the batteries used for PRE and POST tests.

Understanding the complementary nature of paid and volunteer crowds for content creation

Crowdsourced content creation like articles or slogans can be powered by crowds of volunteers or workers from paid task markets. Volunteers often have expertise and are intrinsically motivated, but are a limited resource, and are not always reliably available. On the other hand, paid crowd workers are reliably available, can be guided to produce high-quality content, but cost money. How can these different populations of crowd workers be leveraged together to power cost-effective yet high-quality crowd-powered content-creation systems? To answer this question, we need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each. We conducted an online study where we hired paid crowd workers and recruited volunteers from social media to complete three content creation tasks for three real-world non-profit organizations that focus on empowering women. These tasks ranged in complexity from simply generating keywords or slogans to creating a draft biographical article. Our results show that paid crowds completed work and structured content following editorial guidelines more effectively. However, volunteer crowds provide content that is more original. Based on the findings, we suggest that crowd-powered content-creation systems could gain the best of both worlds by leveraging volunteers to scaffold the direction that original content should take; while having paid crowd workers structure content and prepare it for real world use.

The state of voice user interfaces in Latin America

This paper describes and analyzes the state of research in Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) in Latin America based on the review of scientific documents published in SCOPUS from 1999 to June 2020, through a bibliometric analysis. We analyzed 419 academic papers. Although a gradual increase is observed over the years, the number of published documents has increased considerably since 2014. Brazil (44%) and Mexico (28%) are the countries with more documents published. Co-authorship occurs between Latin American countries (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, and Costa Rica). However, the mayor collaboration from Latin American countries occurs with the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Japan. The main researched topics are studies of automatic speech recognition, artificial intelligence, speech processing, and human-computer interaction, which have grown over the past few years. Natural language processing, conversational agents, user experience, and chatbots are keywords related to more recent studies. Our analysis reveals that the primary active research developed in the short-term future are personal assistants and assistive technology using voice user interfaces.

Creating a serious game for people with visual impairment with an emphasis on adopting the smartphone

A great number of benefits that technology provides are accessed by a smartphone, in order to use it, it is necessary to know how to use the screen readers. However, the use of technology should not be limited by not seeing, not hearing or not being able to touch any technological device. There is currently a gap between people with visual impairment and technology. Despite the existence of a large number of projects that aim to reduce this gap in Mexico, it has not been consistently reduced. This motivates us to develop contributions in this area, so that people with visual disabilities enjoy the same benefits as sighted people. This paper aims to provide a literature review derived from the study phase and an outline of the design phase in the application of the User-Centered Design methodology. This methodology guides the development of a serious game project that will support visually impaired children in their first contact with a smartphone. The bibliographic review that is presented here has allowed us to contextualize and understand the impact of technological contributions and projects for the visually impaired.

Interactions of children and young adults using large-scale elastic displays

Elastic displays provide a unique and intuitive interaction and could be deployed at large-scale. As an emerging technology, open questions about the benefits large-scale elastic displays offer over rigid displays and their potential application to our everyday lives. In this paper, we present an overview of a 4-year project. First, we describe the development of a large-scale elastic display, called BendableSound. Second, we explain the results of a laboratory study, showing the elastic display has a better user and sensory experience than a rigid one. Third, we describe the results of two deployment studies showing how BendableSound could support the therapeutic practices of children with autism and the early development of toddlers. We close discussing open challenges to study the untapped potential of elastic displays in pervasive computing.

Towards human-computer interaction on smart metering systems

New technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution are transforming the world in which we live, and the power grid is no exception since it has been provided with intelligence. One of its best-known applications is smart metering systems that allow real-time energy consumption/production to be known, as well as other benefits such as outages and reconnections automatically. The new generations of smart meters have more computing capacity allowing new applications. This work shows some considerations in the design of smart meters using human-computer interaction techniques. The results aim to improve the end-user’s experience and satisfaction and can help to mitigate the reluctance to use smart metering systems in Mexico.;

Video Game’s design Implications to promote moderate activity in seniors

Researchers and different efforts have identified several social, health, financial challenges, among others, with ageing population. Regarding health challenges, the World Health Organization encourages physical activation programs to promote healthy ageing. These programs aim to alleviate imminent musculoskeletal deterioration, or injuries that may occur. Severely increased deteriorations may affect older adults’ movement patterns, affecting their autonomy, control, or force. The only way to reduce this deterioration is through physical activation. Therefore, medical gerontology considers physical activity as one of the best tools to improve health and prevent many diseases. Within HCI, research has evaluated exergames as an alternative to engage older adults in physical activation. Exergames have become the technological focus of physical activity, stimulating physical activity through play and competition. However, it is unclear how to maximize these benefits. In this paper we present a set of design implications to improve inter-joint angle for older adults, and maximize activity with its precautions.

An IoMT system for health monitoring in athletes

Continuous health monitoring in real-time has become essential to improve people's quality of life through medical prescription or personal control. Our goal is to develop a wearable IoMT device with real-time monitoring of heart rate and breathing patterns while an athlete performs physical exercise at high-intensity intervals. The wearable IoMT device incorporates vital signs sensors to record and display information in a mobile application, allowing users to track their health and receive an alert if the data exceeds normal parameters.

Meta-Gig: Empowering anyone to create crowd marketplaces

Few have the power to create crowd markets. Existing marketplaces may thus not embody workers’ or requesters’ needs. In this paper, we imagine a future where anyone could create the crowd markets they desire. We study the characteristics of the markets that 40 workers and 40 requesters from Amazon Mechanical Turk propose. We uncover that workers pushed for marketplaces that either empowered workers to set their own salaries without requiring a minimum wage or had intelligent algorithms that could automatically decide the salaries while also ensuring everyone received a minimum wage. Requesters were consistent in their preference of paying by commission and preferred markets that automatically set the salary. Both workers and requesters advocated for mechanisms to ensure quality and flexible time schedules in the market. We conclude by discussing design implications from our findings.

Estimation of cognitive stress through the use of non-intrusive methods

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common cause of motor impairment in children and has increased globally. This health problem negatively impacts the quality of a patient's life and the people in their care. The literature reports the use of technological tools developed to support patients' rehabilitation; however, these are intrusive, so they are annoying and can generate stress. This work aims to analyze the existing developments regarding cognitive stress estimation through non-intrusive methods. This study identifies a few developments focused on rehabilitating children with CP by analyzing facial expressions with non-intrusive methods. From the above, the authors propose future lines of work that would eventually support patients with CP.