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The project impacts by connecting people with technology through an interactive art project. Portable equipment ensures wide participation: people respond to, and interact with, virtual living creatures in an entertaining but instructive context. Bringing together human participants (able to intervene in the environment) with the virtual bugs (responsive to stimuli/their environment), people are challenged to consider cause and effect in the physical environment as well as their own inter-social relations. The impact which is cultural, imaginative and pedagogic is achieved through touch rather than via the normal emphasis on the communicated world.
Research undertaken between 2002 and 2012 at Birkbeck has helped establish a participatory approach to cyber-physical computing as the predominant methodology for the construction of mobile and pervasive computing systems. Cyber-physical systems intimately interlink material entities and their information representations as existing on the Internet. Our specific research contributions in systems architecture, privacy protection and human dynamics have demonstrated how the user's activity can be exploited as the core ingredient in building such systems. Our research has resulted in the implementation of applications that are used to monitor biodiversity across the globe, to assess and support Parkinson's disease patients in the UK, to improve the well-being of office workers in London, to engage the public in a debate about the costs and benefits of pervasive computing, and to inform legislatures in the UK and the US.
`Like Shadows: A Celebration of Shyness' brought together members of the art and lay-public communities in a lively debate about visitor shyness in contemporary interactive museums and galleries, in relation to wider debates about public engagement and social exclusion. The project informed the working practices of the ten local artists and curators with whom the researchers collaborated, who created new exhibits on the theme of shyness and designed the event to appeal to shy visitors. Their reports [see Sections 4 and 5] show that this experience has made them more aware of the propensity of digitally-mediated artworks to evoke feelings of shyness amongst visitors, and of the need to reconsider the design and presentation of such exhibits to be more `shy-friendly'. This community-focused event drew in over 7000 visitors, whose feedback confirmed the tendency of interactive, digital media-based exhibits to assume a level of performative confidence and technical knowledge, excluding visitors who felt shy.
Alliance researchers have devised and applied technologies that bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds, linking digital data to physical entities. The ability to embed personal stories in objects and places has impacted on the way National Museums Scotland sources and displays collections, while Oxfam has used the research to bring added value to donated goods, leading to an increase in store sales of 53% over a week-long period. Mobile Visual Search technology has been taken-up by global brands and advertising agencies, including Nike, Disney, Vodafone, Nokia, Tesco, P&G, King & Partners, Mocom and Ogilvy, leading one industry expert to describe it as "the new model of marketing mobility". The work has led to a patent, the receipt of several awards, and influenced the formation of a spin-off company, Mobile Acuity (with revenue of over £0.5M to date), which has secured a major investment of over £1M, including from international corporation, [text removed for publication], to invest in the US and East Asia.
The research has explored the value of making in developing knowledge and the role of haptic cues and their design application in improving usability of products. The research has informed the design of TacMap whose primary beneficiaries are blind and partially sighted users. Resulting impact of research has been 1) a spin out company TacMap Ltd. 2) greater independence and dignity for blind and partially sighted people who through the use of `TacMap' can move more easily around interior and exterior spaces. 3) more inclusive and compliant services for businesses in relationship to the Equality Act 2010 agenda.
Gage's research in interactive architecture since the 1990s has influenced the working methods of a sizeable community of SME architectural and environmental design practices, mainly in London, and in some cases significantly extended the scope of their services. The research has established and strengthened innovative exchange between academia, professions and creative industries and led to the creation of a number of new specialist and award-winning design companies with international profiles. One of these developed intellectual property sold in 2011 for over $15m, while another won a RIBA National Award for design excellence in collaboration with Bartlett staff.
Research into the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) issues behind medical error has enabled hospitals to procure safer devices and is strategically changing attitudes. Approximately 10% of deaths due to preventable errors in hospitals are computational errors; in absolute numbers, this is higher than road fatality rates. Corresponding increased hospital stays, etc, are estimated to cost the NHS over £600m per annum. Our formal analyses and laboratory research with clinicians show error rates can be reliably reduced dramatically by software and HCI improvements (for details see reference list). Swansea's research has significant international reach across decision-makers, clinicians, manufacturers, and regulators. The US Food and Drug Administration (the FDA, the leading regulator) say research-based improvements will take decades and have therefore started to co-author papers with us to improve impact (all healthcare manufacturers watch the FDA closely).
Emotional signals — obvious outbursts, or more often subtle changes in tone of voice, or facial expression — play a key part in human communication. Psychology researchers at Queen's have made fundamental contributions to `affective computing', which enables automatic systems to use those signals. The team's work has influenced a new computing language for describing these signals and the states that they reveal: EmotionML (Emotion Markup Language). The language has been recommended as a standard by the World Wide Web Consortium, to define how software describes emotions.
The language is used by multinational corporations in a range of applications in a rapidly expanding field. Queen's expertise in emotion led Dr Gary McKeown to found a start-up company, Adoreboard (previously known as Mediasights) along with entrepreneur Chris Johnston, which specifically uses EmotionML in opinion and sentiment analysis in marketing. Its product, Adoreboard, lets companies track consumers' emotional responses to their products. The company has agreed funding of £470,000, partnerships with three multinational corporations, and was recently selected to take up residence at Google's campus in London.