Affective Computing (Week 8)

Affective computing is that aspect of computing that deals with the recognition, interpretation, processing and simulation of human emotions. It encompasses the use of computer science, psychology and cognitive science. This is the creation of machines that understand human emotions  and gives the right response to these emotions by the adaptation of its characteristics to suit the situation.

Professor Rosalind Picard, the author of one of the key papers explains Affective computing in the video below;


From the explanation above, I deduced that the major usefulness of Affective computing will be in the medical field, particularly for challenged individuals. I, personally think any other use out of this context could be very creepy and weird.

Affective computing for now has 2 classifications of usage;

• Sensors that detect and record various emotions for various uses.
• Emotional robots.

Below is an example of an emotional robot and description of its abilities;



Some of the challenges faced in this aspect of computing are;

• Sensing and recognizing emotions: How does a machine know what exact emotion one is feeling?"
• Affect modelling: How to create valid models of emotional processing?
• Emotion expression: How to make computers (robots) reliably and believably express emotion?
• Ethics: How to ensure that the user's privacy is not invaded and there is no breach of ethics?
• Utility of considering Affect in HCI: Is this aspect really useful in our everyday activities?

I believe balance is required for this area of computing and strict laws have to be enforced to enable Affective computing be only used where needed (health) because if publicly used, this could lead to lack of privacy and bad consequences.

I conclude with this question "will building smart self-aware robots endanger our existence in the future?".

Key Papers
https://studydirect.sussex.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=336747
https://studydirect.sussex.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=336750

Interactive Systems for Health (Week 7)

This is the topic I have been patiently waiting for as my major area of specialisation is Health Informatics and I am particularly interested in seeing the trends in this are.
After going through the key papers, I had a good idea of the meaning and usefulness of this topic but I was looking forward to listening to the presenters as well as seeing new inventions in this area.
The presenters started by explaining the various relationships between Information Technology and medicine, which includes;

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Informatics
• Ubiquitous computing

I found great interest in the Bridge project which was said to be a project for poor families to teach them how to eat right and providing them with various classes.
The various types of technologies in medicine were grouped and explained as follows;

• Healthcare technologies at home: These are essentially used to do things which are difficult for people to do as well as monitor the health state of patients. They are also used to generate data for patients and these data are used to find cures for illnesses by the doctors that retrieve these data.
• Emergency Detection sensors: These monitor temperature,nutrition,fever,cardiac activities,stroke, diabetic coma, asthmatic attack and so on; and ensures that if there is a change in these parameters, the health personnels are alerted.
• Assistive Robots: This is the use of smart robots to relate with humans and also to analyse any change in the user's environment or health. An example was shown of a robot doing house chores.
• Technology at Hospitals: The use of technology in hospitals has led to a reduction in death by 17%. The NHS is an avid user of technology as shown in the video during the presentation. They also use technology to ensure patients' get their drugs.

Health related technologies can be useful from the patient's perspective (iphone app, Telemedicine, interactive TV, dummy simulators) and from the health providers' perspective. The major challenges of such technologies include high cost while its major advantage is the provision of better health care.
Below are the links for the key papers for this topic;
https://studydirect.sussex.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=336740
https://studydirect.sussex.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=336744

Here are some really useful health technologies I discovered;
http://www.life-recovery.com/site/video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlYe1VvE_Uo&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27QNiz8iDb0&feature=player_embedded

Participatory Design (Week 6)

Today was my presentation and my topic was "Participatory Design". After the period of research, I was ready for the presentation although I was a little nervous. We got to the class early to set up but the sound was not working properly but we eventually started and it went on great.

I was particularly excited to share my case study with the class because it was really interesting and intriguing. I was particularly happy to have gotten this case study from Google Scholar because it encompasses the total aim of Participatory Design. 
The case study was basically 

The question session was quite long and more hands were being raised to ask more questions. I feel because of the clarity of our presentation, people could relate and ask meaningful questions. I was so proud of my team for answering all the questions appropriately and making sure that our topic was fully understood.

After the presentation, Katie explained our coursework to us and how we should go about doing it; whether using the design procedure or understanding procedure. After her explanation, we were asked to discuss with our neighbours how we intended doing our coursework and she later went round asking questions pertaining the coursework as a whole.

Today was quite fun and educative and I am so happy my presentation went as good as I hoped.

Listed below are the links for the key papers for my topic; 

https://studydirect.sussex.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=340311

https://studydirect.sussex.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=336603

I have attached the link for my presentation also;

https://studydirect.sussex.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=354206

                         

Here is a video that sums up what my topic was about;