Posts Tagged ‘infrastructure’

Interchange: An Analysis of Auction Mechanics for Intersections - June 18th, 2012

Moleskins and Pens

Photo courtesy of paulworthington

Congratulations to Nitin Shantharam who passed his M.S. advancement to candidacy exam with the paper:

“Interchange: An Analysis of Auction Mechanics for Intersections”

Abstract: In urban environments a large amount of effort is directed toward alleviating mo- tor vehicle congestion including the design and implementation of complex software and hardware infrastructure. We propose a conceptually simple infrastructure that has promise for increasing performance and responsiveness of intersections to dynamic traffic conditions. The proposed system uses an auction-based mechanism at intersections to alleviate traffic congestion. We discuss the reasoning and goals of implementing auction mechanics into intersections and set empirical expectations as to how such intersections should perform. Second, we compare our simulation of a traditional intersection and an auction-based intersection and propose metrics to track and evaluate such intersections. We demonstrate that auction-based intersections perform well in single and multi-grid configurations. Finally, we present our mesoscopic simulator capable of simulating real-world topographies and show that auction-based intersections show promise in more realistic systems as well.

Committee:

  1. Prof. Donald Patterson (chair)
  2. Prof. Bill Tomlinson
  3. Prof. Ramesh Jain

Get the full text of his thesis in our tech reports section.

Great Job Nitin!

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Posted: 6/18/12 10:38 pm UTC by Make the First Comment
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LUCI members get many papers accepted by CHI 2011 - January 27th, 2011

Moleskins and Pens

Photo courtesy of paulworthington

The LUCI lab has had several papers accepted to CHI 2011. The list of accepted works was just released and includes the following by students, researchers, and faculty:

Full Papers:

Situating the Concern for Information Privacy through an Empirical Study of Responses to Video Recording by David Nguyen (LUCI Ph.D.), Aurora Bedford and Alex Bretana (Informatics undergrads) and Gillian R. Hayes (LUCI faculty)

Unpacking Exam-Room Computing: Negotiating Computer-Use in Patient-Physician Interactions by Yunan Chen (LUCI faculty), Victor Ngo and Sidney Harrison (Informatics Masters students) and Victoria Duong (UCI undergrad).

Comparing Activity Theory with Distributed Cognition for Video Analysis: Beyond “Kicking the Tires.” by Eric Baumer (former LUCI post-doc) and Bill Tomlinson (LUCI faculty)

Infrastructures for low-cost laptop use in Mexican schools
Ruy Cervantes (Informatics Ph.D.), Mark Warschauer (Ed. Dept.), Bonnie Nardi (LUCI Faculty), and Nithya Sambasivan (Informatics Ph.D.)

Designing a Phone Broadcasting System for Urban Sex Workers in India
Nithya Sambasivan (Informatics Ph.D.) and Ed Cutrell (Microsoft)

Classroom-Based Assistive Technology: Collective Use of Interactive Visual Schedules by Students with Autism
Meg Cramer (LUCI Ph.D.), Sen Hirano (LUCI M.S.), Monica Tentori (UABC), Michael Yeganyan (LUCI M.S.), and Gillian R. Hayes (LUCI Faculty)

Homebrew Databases: Complexities of Everyday Information Management in Nonprofit Organizations
Amy Voida (Informatics PostDoc), Ellie Harmon (LUCI Ph.D.), Ban Al-Ani (Informatics Faculty)

Why Do I Keep Interrupting Myself?: Environment, Habit and Self-Interruption
Laura Dabbish (CMU), Gloria Mark (Informatics Faculty), Victor Gonzalez, (ITAM)

Refraining from Technological Intervention by by Eric Baumer (former LUCI post-doc) and Six Silberman (former LUCI Ph.D. Student)

Congratulations
Alex, Aurora, Bill, David, Eric, Gillian, Sidney, Six, Victor, Yunan, Ruy, Bonnie, Nithya, Meg, Sen, Monica, Michael, Amy, Ellie, Ban, and Gloria!

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Posted: 1/27/11 7:36 pm UTC by Add Your Comment
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LUCI has 8 (!) papers accepted to CSCW - November 12th, 2010

Moleskins and Pens

Photo courtesy of paulworthington

The LUCI lab will have a tremendous showing at CSCW 2011. The list of accepted works was just released and includes the following by grad students and faculty:

Full Papers:

“We will never forget you [online]”: An empirical investigation of post-mortem MySpace comments by Jed R. Brubaker (LUCI grad student), Gillian R. Hayes (LUCI faculty)

SELECT * FROM USER: Infrastructure and Socio-technical Representation by Jed R. Brubaker (LUCI grad student), Gillian R. Hayes (LUCI faculty)

Improving Communication and Social Support for Caregivers of High-Risk Infants through Mobile Technologies by Leslie S. Liu (LUCI grad student), Sen H. Hirano (LUCI grad student), Monica Tentori (LUCI post-doc), Karen G. Cheng (Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science), Sheba George (Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science), Sunyoung Park (LUCI grad student), Gillian R. Hayes (LUCI faculty)

The Values of Data: Considering the Context of Production in Data Economies by Janet Vertesi (Princeton University), Paul Dourish (LUCI faculty)

Social Mechanisms and Technological Affordances for Building Trust: ICT Use By Civilians in a Warzone by Bryan Semaan (Informatics grad student), Gloria Mark (Informatics faculty)

Notes:

Health Information Use in Chronic Care Cycles by Yunan Chen (LUCI faculty)

Forget Online Communities? Revisit Cooperative Work! by Yong Ming Kow (Informatics grad student), Bonnie Nardi (LUCI faculty)

What Do My Buddies Choose?: Informing Privacy Preferences with Social Navigation by Sameer Patil (former LUCI grad student), Xinru Page (Informatics grad student), Alfred Kobsa (Informatics faculty)

Congratulations
Jed, Gillian, Leslie, Sen, Monica Tentori, Karen, Sheba, Sunyoung, Bryan, Gloria, Yunan, Janet, Paul, Yong Ming, Bonnie, Sameer, Xinru and Alfred!

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Posted: 11/12/10 4:24 pm UTC by Add Your Comment
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Lilly, Melissa, and Paul receive Best Paper Award for `Shopping for Sharpies in Seattle` - August 22nd, 2010

Moleskins and Pens

Photo courtesy of paulworthington

Informatics Ph.D. student Lilly Irani and Informatics faculty members Melissa Mazmanian and Paul Dourish just received the Best Paper award of ICIC 2010, the International Conference on Intercultural Collaboration, going on in Copenhagen. Their paper, “”Shopping for Sharpies in Seattle: Mundane Infrastructures of Transnational Design” comes out of the research they’ve been doing on design collaborations across India and the US.

Abstract:
In this paper, we describe the importance of mundane tools for design practitioners in India working with Euro-American clients. Our findings are based on a 7-week ethnographic study of a design firm based in Delhi, India. We analyze some highly-valued tools and software, such as post-its, as infrastructures with both practical and symbolic functions. These infrastructures are made meaningful in the shared practices of a transnational but primarily Euro-American design community. Designers in India employ a number of strategies we call “infrastructure work” to be able to participate as designers in this mold.

Congratulations Lilly, Melissa and Paul!

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Posted: 8/22/10 4:13 am UTC by Add Your Comment
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CACM blog: Thinking Globally, Thinking Locally: Infrastructures for Collaboration - February 11th, 2010

Someone designing something on a computer

Photo courtesy of fernandopelillo

Lilly Irani was recently profiled (in a good way) on the CACM Blog, which is located here:
Thinking Globally, Thinking Locally: Infrastructures for Collaboration | Computers And Society | Communications of the ACM

An excerpt follows:

“Lilly studies infrastructures necessary to support design teams that operate out of India and work with clients who are also in Europe and the United States. Lilly started with seven weeks of immersive fieldwork observing a Delhi-based design team. She lived in the homes of her participants and went to work with them daily. As a researcher, she mostly observed, but she also helped with small tasks around the office, shopping for office supplies and tools, and photographing and filming user research done by the firm. Something Lilly found in her initial fieldwork is that short digital films (e.g. posted on vimeo) can help in communicating with foreign design research clients. In the words of Lilly, “You can post films on vimeo and really engage someone 12,000 miles away in a way that you can’t with a document or a phone call. If a picture is worth a 1000 words, a film is worth 10000 and it’s a lot more likely, if the film is good, that the intended viewer (the client) will watch it all the way through. “

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Posted: 2/11/10 2:14 pm UTC by Make the First Comment
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Engineers Race to Restore Communications after Haiti Quake - January 21st, 2010

Photo courtesy of Flickr:GAIN USA

Below is an excerpt from an interesting article about the race to restore network connectivity in Haiti. A few interesting points: There is one undersea cable out of Haiti. Because of that ISPs were already using satellite. First responders brought network with them. The effort now is on expanding access to net to everyone.

“Late last week, the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union dispatched engineers to assess the damage to telecom infrastructure along with 100 satellite terminals—and the personnel to operate them—in an effort to help coordinate rescue efforts. According to a press release, “ITU will also set up a Qualcomm Deployable Base Station (QDBS), a reliable, responsive and complete cellular system designed to enable vital wireless communications aimed at strengthening response and recovery mechanisms in a disaster zone.”

Read more:
IEEE Spectrum

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Posted: 1/21/10 9:14 am UTC by Make the First Comment
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Interfaces to the Subterranean: Paris’ Pneumatic Postal Service - October 31st, 2009

tubes

tubes


Video podcast

This is a video rebroadcast of a talk by Molly Steenson given in the Department of Informatics on 10/15/2009. Molly is a design researcher and architectural historian who studies interactivity and responsiveness in architecture. Molly was an Associate Professor of Connected Communities at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in architecture at Princeton University. In this talk she discusses the original “series of tubes” and buildings that function as computers.

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Posted: 10/31/09 9:05 am UTC by Make the First Comment
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Joel, Lilly and an invisible other former ACE student in the news - July 29th, 2009

Mechanical Turk lets you make a few bucks online – Sacramento Business, Housing Market News | Sacramento Bee

Lilly Irani, another doctoral candidate at UC Irvine, is concerned about a lack of workers’ rights on Mechanical Turk. In one survey she conducted, more than half of the respondents complained of unfair rejection of work that resulted in no payout.

Irani and another UC Irvine student built software called Turkopticon, which aims to level the playing field between workers and requesters by providing better community feedback and information on requesters’ reputations.

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Posted: 7/29/09 10:52 pm UTC by Add Your Comment
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South Coast Plaza has an iPod Vending Machine - July 3rd, 2009

Okay, so I don’t get out much, but last night I was at South Coast Plaza and stumbled across this iPod vending machine. I had heard that such things existed before, but I didn’t think I would run into one unless I was in an alley in Japan. It turns out that there is one in Macy’s.
It is iPod branded, but has Sony and other other company products in it also. There is one screen in the upper left with marketing videos running in a loop and a touch screen on the right for picking your gadget.
There was clearly a security concern as there was a special video camera watching it and it was in the middle of a Macy’s, not in an alley in Japan.
So now, if it is too much trouble to get your iPod from the Apple Store 50 feet away, you can use the vending machine instead.

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Posted: 7/3/09 8:28 am UTC by Add Your Comment
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Building a Context aware Infrastructure using Bluetooth - June 3rd, 2009

Celebration Balloons

Photo courtesy of flickr:eye2eye

Congratulations to Jahnavi Kondragunta on passing her Master’s Thesis defense!

Thesis: Building a Context aware Infrastructure using Bluetooth

Context Aware applications are applications that behave according to the context they are placed in. Infrastructures can be integrated with such applications to develop context awareness and modify their behavior according to the changes in the context. In this paper we present a core system that aids in developing such applications. The system estimates the location of people around the infrastructure by observing the bluetooth devices that they carry. The applications can then use this information as desired. To study the viability of bluetooth tracking and the efficiency of the system, an experimental system was implemented and deployed on the 5th floor of Donald Bren Hall at University of California, Irvine. The experimental system was put on a trial run and the results obtained were analyzed. The results show that building a successful tracking system based on Bluetooth is complex and requires significant changes to user behavior.

Committee:
Donald Jay Patterson (Chair)
James A Jones
Yunan Chen

Congrats Jahnavi!!

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Posted: 6/3/09 11:12 am UTC by Make the First Comment
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