Technology is often viewed as an important factor that impacts the effectiveness of online learning systems. To explore the importance of various technologies, the authors conducted a comprehensive study that investigates the experiences of students and instructors that are involved in online learning. A number of questionnaires concerning perceptions, experiences, resources, and perceived effe...

Identifying human capabilities in perceiving affective expressions is essential for developing interactive machines that can engage with their human users. In order to ensure that the behaviour of the interactive machine is perceived as intended, any gender–specific differences in the perception of affective expressions are an important design consideration. This paper presents a preliminary st...

Sensor based perception promises to be the basis for a wide array of novel interaction mechanisms, which may change the way we interact with ubiquitous computing systems. Sensors based perception however, has imperfections resulting in drawbacks such as uncertainty and latency. Consequently, the improvement of sensors and perception methods is important. In this paper we argue however that impe...

We present a skill for the perception of three-dimensional kinematic structures of rigid articulated bodies with revolute and prismatic joints. The ability to acquire such models autonomously is required for general manipulation in unstructured environments. Experiments on a mobile manipulation platform with realworld objects under varying lighting conditions demonstrate the robustness of the p...

Robotics research tends to focus upon either non-contact sensing or machine manipulation, but not both. This paper explores the benefits of combining the two by addressing the problem of extracting and classifying unknown objects within a cluttered environment, such as found in recycling and service robot applications. In the proposed approach, a pile of objects lies on a flat background, and t...