The AVATAR Information Extraction System (IES) at the IBM Almaden Research Center enables highprecision, rule-based, information extraction from text-documents. Drawing from our experience we propose the use of probabilistic database techniques as the formal underpinnings of information extraction systems so as to maintain high precision while increasing recall. This involves building a framewo...

Highly accurate avatars of humans promise a new level of realism in engineering and entertainment applications, including areas such as computer animated movies, computer game development, interactive virtual environments and telepresence. In order to provide high-quality avatars, new techniques for the automatic acquisition and creation are required. A framework for the capture and constructio...

Walking is a fundamental physical activity in humans. Various virtual walking systems have been developed using treadmill or leg-support devices. Using optic flow, foot vibrations simulating footsteps, and avatar, we propose system that does not require limb action for seated users. We aim to investigate whether full-body hands-and-feet-only avatar with either the first-person (experiment 1) th...

AIMS MMORPG addiction has been associated with self-concept impairments and increased identification with the own avatar. Yet, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of self-identification with avatars, especially reflected in the left angular gyrus (AG), have only been assessed in regular gamers. Therefore, the study aims to examine neurobiological processes in addicted MMORPG players while...

In this paper, we identified an important issue when supporting a large scale networked virtual environment(NVE) with a server cluster. This issue is similar to the process migration issue on the parallel computing study and we refer it as the avatar migration problem. That is, when an avatar of an NVE is moving from one region managed by a server to another region managed by a different server...

Computers are becoming more and more ubiquitous, moving from the desktop into our everyday life. Today's challenge is to build a suitable visualization architecture for anthropomorphic conversational user interfaces which will run on different devices like laptops, PDAs and mobile phones. This new kind of interface will be adaptive to the current user, personal preferences, the history of the c...

It is desirable to address accessibility issues within virtual worlds. Moreover, curbing criminal activities within virtual worlds is a major concern to the law enforcement agencies. Forensic investigators and accessibility researchers are gaining considerable interests in detecting and tracking avatars as well as describing their appearance within virtual worlds. Leinhart and Maydt have introd...

Players project their intentions, expressions and movements into virtual worlds. A dominant reference point for this projection is their avatar. We explore the transfer of a player's own body movements onto their virtual self, drawing on cognitive science's common coding theory as a model for understanding their self-recognition. This chapter presents the results of two sets of self-recognition...

Inferring the user’s approval of a graphical interface with non-invasive devices can be effective in improving its design and in implementing adaptive pleasant interactions. This paper investigates how 3 common physiological signals, i.e. skin conductance, heart rate and respiration, can be exploited to infer users’ approval of an online avatar embedded in a health care Website. A between group...

This research explores and evaluates the contribution that facial expressions might have regarding improved comprehension and acceptability in sign language avatars. Focusing specifically on Irish Sign Language (ISL), we examine the Deaf 1 community’s responsiveness to sign language avatars. The hypothesis of this is: Augmenting an existing avatar with the 7 widely accepted universal emotions i...