Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Human behavior modelling'

Mathematical models represent a powerful tool for investigating the dynamics of human infection diseases, providing useful predictions about the spread of a disease and the effectiveness of possible control measures. One of the central aspects to understand the dynamics of human infection is the heterogeneity in behavioral patters adopted by the host population. Beyond control measures imposed by public authorities, human behavioral changes can be triggered by uncoordinated responses driven by the diffusion of fear in the general population or by the risk perception. In order to assess how and when behavioral changes can affect the spread of an epidemic, spontaneous social distancing - e.g. produced by avoiding crowded environments, using face masks or limiting travels - is investigated. Moreover, in order to assess whether vaccine preventable diseases can be eliminated through not compulsory vaccination programs, vaccination choices are investigated as well. The proposed models are based on an evolutionary game theory framework. Considering dynamical games allows explicitly modeling the coupled dynamics of disease transmission and human behavioral changes. Specifically, the information diffusion is modeled through an imitation process in which the convenience of different behaviors depends on the perceived risk of infection and vaccine side effects. The proposed models allow the investigation of the effects of misperception of risks induced by partial, delayed or incorrect information (either concerning the state of the epidemic or vaccine side effects) as well. The performed investigation highlights that a small reduction in the number of potentially infectious contacts in response to an epidemic and an initial misperception of the risk of infection can remarkably affect the spread of infection. On the other hand, the analysis of vaccination choices showed that concerns about proclaimed risks of vaccine side effects can result in widespread refusal of vaccination which in turn leads to drops in vaccine uptake and suboptimal vaccination coverage.

Mathematical models represent a powerful tool for investigating the dynamics of human infection diseases, providing useful predictions about the spread of a disease and the effectiveness of possible control measures. One of the central aspects to understand the dynamics of human infection is the heterogeneity in behavioral patters adopted by the host population. Beyond control measures imposed by public authorities, human behavioral changes can be triggered by uncoordinated responses driven by the diffusion of fear in the general population or by the risk perception. In order to assess how and when behavioral changes can affect the spread of an epidemic, spontaneous social distancing - e.g. produced by avoiding crowded environments, using face masks or limiting travels - is investigated. Moreover, in order to assess whether vaccine preventable diseases can be eliminated through not compulsory vaccination programs, vaccination choices are investigated as well. The proposed models are based on an evolutionary game theory framework. Considering dynamical games allows explicitly modeling the coupled dynamics of disease transmission and human behavioral changes. Specifically, the information diffusion is modeled through an imitation process in which the convenience of different behaviors depends on the perceived risk of infection and vaccine side effects. The proposed models allow the investigation of the effects of misperception of risks induced by partial, delayed or incorrect information (either concerning the state of the epidemic or vaccine side effects) as well. The performed investigation highlights that a small reduction in the number of potentially infectious contacts in response to an epidemic and an initial misperception of the risk of infection can remarkably affect the spread of infection. On the other hand, the analysis of vaccination choices showed that concerns about proclaimed risks of vaccine side effects can result in widespread refusal of vaccination which in turn leads to drops in vaccine uptake and suboptimal vaccination coverage.

Human behaviour can be considered as the ensemble of various activities performed by an individual towards performing a particular task. There are many factors influencing human behaviour including culture, attitudes, emotions, values, ethics, and so on. In this work, the concept of 'human behaviour' in the context of human psycho-motor behaviour is studied. This work is primarily concerned with the development of a system to learn, distinguish and recognise various pre-defined human behavioural tasks. As an initial constraint, the challenging goal, subject to the limitation of hardware, is to model various human behaviours with only one integrated inertial sensor. The motions are captured with the sensor and recorded as streams of multi-dimensional sensory data, which are subsequently analysed into certain patterns. Since only one point on the human body can be measured with that sensor at a time, there are not sufficient motion data to enable the generation of new synthetic behaviours (which might be possible with multiple sensors). It is not really possible to develop a comprehensive model of complex behaviours under this condition. Thus, this work has focussed on building a system to model the behaviour of a specific part of the human body, and in turn to recognise and compare these behaviours. The experimental rig consists of an inertial sensor mounted on the subject providing kinematics data in real-time. Through this sensor, the behavioural motions are transformed into continuous streams of signals including Euler angles and accelerations in three spatial dimensions. Unsupervised machine learning algorithms and other techniques are implemented to analyse and build models of human behaviours in this work. An intrinsic classification algorithm called MML (Minimum Message Length encoding), and a popular unsupervised fuzzy clustering algorithm FCM (Fuzzy c-Means) are used to segment the complex data streams respectively, formulating inherent models of the dynamic modes they represent. Subsequent representation and analysis including FSM (Finite State Machines), DTW (Dynamic Time Warping), Kullback-Leibler divergence and Smith-Waterman sequence alignment have proved quite effective in distinguishing between behavioural characteristics that persist across a variety of tasks and multiple candidates. The hypothesis pursued in the thesis has been validated based on two machine learning algorithms for unsupervised learning namely MML and FCM. Each of these methods is capable of producing a range of primitives from the motion training data. However, the outcomes of regular expression and Dynamic Time Warping analysis results indicate that MML provides better results compared with the FCM algorithm in terms of identifying behaviours.

Traffic conflicts associated to signalized intersections are one of the major contributing factors to crash occurrences. Driver behavior plays an important role in the safety concerns related to signalized intersections. In this research effort, dynamics of driver behavior in relation to the traffic conflicts occurring at the onset of yellow is investigated. The area ahead of intersections in which drivers encounter a dilemma to pass through or stop when the yellow light commences is called Dilemma Zone (DZ). Several DZ-protection algorithms and advance signal settings have been developed to accommodate the DZ-related safety concerns. The focus of this study is on drivers' decision dynamics, human learning, and choice behavior in DZ, and DZ-related safety measures. First, influential factors to drivers' decision in DZ were determined using a driver behavior survey. This information was applied to design an adaptive experiment in a driving simulator study. Scenarios in the experimental design are aimed at capturing drivers learning process while experiencing safe and unsafe signal settings. The result of the experiment revealed that drivers do learn from some of their experience. However, this learning process led into a higher level of risk aversion behavior. Therefore, DZ-protection algorithms, independent of their approach, should not have any concerns regarding drivers learning effect on their protection procedure. Next, the possibility of predicting drivers' decision in different time frames using different datasets was examined. The results showed a promising prediction model if the data collection period is assumed 3 seconds after yellow. The prediction model serves advance signal protection algorithms to make more intelligent decisions. In the next step, a novel Surrogate Safety Number (SSN) was introduced based on the concept of time to collision. This measure is applicable to evaluate different DZ-protection algorithms regardless of their embedded methodology, and it has the potential to be used in developing new DZ-protection algorithms. Last, an agent-based human learning model was developed integrating machine learning and human learning techniques. An abstracted model of human memory and cognitive structure was used to model agent's behavior and learning. The model was applied to DZ decision making process, and agents were trained using the driver simulator data. The human learning model resulted in lower and faster-merging errors in mimicking drivers' behavior comparing to a pure machine learning technique.
Ph. D.

Artificial life modelling is an extensive subject to exert effort in one piece of work such as this work. For that reason this work is limited to keep the base line of modelling of human behavior. Presented work deal with a creation of an artificial agent whose human-like behavior is implemented according to the PECS reference model. Specification of the PECS reference model is implemented in Java to build a simulation of artificial human being in some environment. Modeled human being has been assigned to imitate human activities, react adequately to sensed events from the environment and change the environment to achieve its goals. Modeled human being is a behavior controled entity acting according to its current role.

Ce travail, mené conjointement entre CNPP et le Laboratoire d’Énergétique et de Mécanique Théorique et Appliquée, est consacré à la mise en place d’un modèle d’évacuation de personnes, dans l’optique d’une application en Ingénierie de Sécurité Incendie. Le modèle de cheminement de personnes développé dans ce manuscrit est un modèle physique reposant sur une équation de conservation de la densité de personnes. Il est basé sur des hypothèses simples et réalistes résultant de l’observation de mouvements de foule, et utilise une vision macroscopique des personnes caractérisées par une densité moyenne. Ce modèle est mis en œuvre sur des cas de vérification et de comparaison issus de la littérature. Des expériences d’évacuation sont réalisées à échelle réelle afin de récolter des données quantitatives sur le mouvement des personnes et de valider de façon pertinente le modèle de cheminement de personnes. En outre, une stratégie est proposée afin d’intégrer dans la modélisation les contraintes thermiques et optiques liées au feu ainsi que leur impact sur le processus d’évacuation. Enfin, des simulations d’évacuation intégrant les effets du feu sont effectuées sur une configuration à grande échelle
This work was conducted as a collaboration between CNPP and the laboratory LEMTA. It was devoted to the implementation of an emergency egress model offering prospects for use in Fire Safety Engineering. The pedestrian movement model described in this manuscript is a physical model relying on a people density balance equation. This model is based on three fundamental assumptions resulting from pedestrian phenomena commonly observed, especially in crowds. Its mathematical formulation assumes that people are regarded as a mean density in a macroscopic way. The pedestrian model was tested on verification and comparison cases extracted from literature. Evacuation drills were also performed at real scale without fire constraints to collect some quantitative data like egress times or flows, and to validate the people motion model. Furthermore, a mathematical strategy is propounded in order to integrate thermal and optical stresses into the evacuation model and to take into consideration their incidence on evacuation processes. Finally, egress simulations are achieved on a large-scale configuration considering different scenarios involving fires

The concept of sustainable urban environments aims to provide urban facilities including transport interchanges that can accommodate a wide spectrum of the human population irrespective of gender, age or disability. A major objective is to reduce levels of social exclusion which arise from inadequacy in infrastructure that strongly affects certain members of society such as the elderly, disabled and poor. This research focuses on the particular aspect of crowded public spaces where it is envisaged that improvements in crowd flow could be achieved by a proper consideration of all the users of the space but particularly the elderly and disabled. The ultimate objective would be design tools that provide architects with the means to achieve inclusivity in design for the elderly and disabled with relative ease and speed. Therefore, this research has developed a methodology and a computing tool to implement aspects of human walking behaviour in public spaces. Human behaviours have been studied using a large-scale video observation involving over 17,000 subjects. The videos have been analysed to determine a number of different behaviours and their relationship to distinguishing characteristics of the subjects such as age, gender and disability. Algorithms for representing these behaviours have been developed and implemented as a simulation tool (HIMs) within commercially available gaming software. Two case studies, within shopping malls and a bus station, have been carried out to illustrate the feasibility of the work and simple examples of small environmental design changes that significantly affect crowd flow are shown.

Cette thèse porte sur la modélisation du comportement humain dans les simulations de combat naval. Au sein de l'entreprise DCNS, les simulations de combat naval permettent d'évaluer les performances opérationnelles des navires militaires, dans un scénario donné. Les simulations actuelles ne permettent pas de prendre en compte l'analyse et la décision d'un opérateur, qui peuvent parfois conduire à des réactions inattendues. Le but de cette thèse est donc de modéliser le comportement d'un opérateur pour les simulations de combats navals.Pour représenter les connaissances, la logique non monotone la plus employée a été utilisée: la logique des défauts. Une prise en compte du temps a été ajoutée à cette logique des défauts. La logique des défauts va permettre de calculer des extensions. Chaque extension correspond à une action possible pour l'opérateur.Une méthode qui permet de choisir une extension a été définie. Cette méthode simule la décision de l'opérateur et elle prend en compte le caractère de l'opérateur.

Malgré le progrès en recherche et développement dans le domaine de système autonome, de tels systèmes nécessitent l’intervention humaine pour résoudre les problèmes imprévus durant l’exécution des tâches par l’utilisateur.Il est donc nécessaire, malgré cette autonomie, de tenir compte du comportement du conducteur et il est difficile d’ignorer l’effet de l’intervention humaine dans le cadre de l’évolution continue de l’environnement et des préférences de l’utilisateur. Afin d’exécuter les opérations selon les attentes de l’opérateur, il est nécessaire d’incorporer dans la commande les besoins de l’utilisateur.Dans les travaux présentés dans cette thèse un modèle comportemental de l’utilisateur est développé et intégré dans la boucle de commande afin d’adapter la commande à l’utilisateur. Ceci est appliqué à la commande des fauteuils électrique et assiste dans la navigation du fauteuil dans un milieu encombré.Le développement du modèle comportemental est basé sur la méthode de potentielles orientées et la détection des obstacles et le comportement du conducteur vs de ces obstacles par l’adaptation duL’étude contribue également au développement d’un modèle dynamique du fauteuil utilisable dans des situations normales et exceptionnelles telle que le dérapage. Ce modèle est développé pour un le cas le plus courant des fauteuil avec roues arrière conductrices utilisant le formalisme Euler Lagrange avec les forces gravitationnelles et sur des surfaces inclinées.Dans la formulation de la commande, le modèle du conducteur est introduit dans la boucle de commande. L’optimalité de la performance est assurée par l’utilisation du commande prédictif généralisé pour le système en temps continue. Les résultats de la simulation démontrent l’efficacité de l’approche proposée pour l’adaptation de la commande au comportement du conducteur
Although the progressive research and development of autonomous systems is fairly evident, such systems still require human interventions to solve the unforeseen complexities, and clear the uncertainties encountered in the execution of user-tasks. Thus, in spite of the system's autonomy, it may not be possible to absolutely disregard the operator's role. Human intervention, particularly in the control of auto-mobiles, may as well be hard to ignore because of the constantly changing operational context and the evolving nature of the drivers' needs and preferences. In order to execute the autonomous operations in conformity with the operator's expectations, it may be necessary to incorporate the advancing needs and behaviour of the operator in the design. This thesis formulates an operator behaviour model, and integrates the model in the control loop to adapt the functionality of a human-machine system to the operator's behaviour. The study focuses on a powered wheelchair, and contributes to the advancement of steering performance, through background assistance by modelling, empirical estimation and incorporation of the driver's steering behaviour into the control system. The formulation of the steering behaviour model is based on two fundamentals: the general empirical knowledge of wheelchair steering, and the experimental steering data captured by a standard powered wheelchair, on both virtual and real environments. The study considers a reactive directed potential field (DPF) method in the modelling of drivers' risk detection and avoidance behaviour, and applies the ordinary least square procedure in the identification of best-fitting driver parameters. The study also contributes to the development of a dynamic model of the wheelchair, usable under normal and non-normal conditions, by taking into consideration the conventional differential drive wheelchair structure with two front castor wheels. Derivation of the dynamic model, based on the Euler Lagrange formalism, is carried out in two folds: initially by considering the gravitational forces subjected to the wheelchair on inclined configurations with no slipping situations, and finally by incorporating slipping parameters into the model. Determination of the slipping parameters is approached from the geometric perspective, by considering the non-holonomic motions of the wheelchair in the Euclidean space. In the closed-loop model, the input-output feedback controller is proposed for the tracking of user inputs by torque compensation. The optimality of the resulting minimum-phase closed-loop system is then ensured through the performance index of the non-linear continuous-time generalised predictive control (GPC). Simulation results demonstrate the expected behaviour of the wheelchair dynamic model, the steering behaviour model and the assistive capability of the closed-loop system

Intelligent virtual characters are becoming increasingly popular in en­ tertainment, educational and simulation software. A virtual charac­ ter is the creation or re-creation of a human being in an image, using computer-generated imagery. It must act and react in the environment, drawing on the disciplines of automated reasoning and planning. Creating characters with human-like behaviours that respond interactively to a real person in a video, is still a serious challenge. There are several major reasons for this. First, human motion is very complex, which makes it particularly difficult to simulate. Second, the human form is also not straightforward to design due to the large number of degrees of freedom of the motion. Third, creating novel contextual movements for virtual characters in real time is a new research area.

This thesis investigates the role of the hyperpolarization-activated current, Ih, on the excitability of human axons. It exploits the unique characteristics of the underlying hyperpolarization-activated cyclic-nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels to improve existing and create new techniques for studying Ih. An isolated amplifier with low-noise and high common-mode rejection was developed, and threshold tracking techniques were modified to allow the measurement of the excitability of low-threshold sensory axons and of cutaneous afferents close to their receptors. These developments open up the possibility of studying changes in polyneuropathies, where symptoms and possibly the underlying pathology are more apparent distally in the limbs. Strong and long-lasting hyperpolarization was used to open more HCN channels and to examine their contribution to the excitability of motor and sensory axons. A mathematical model of myelinated motor axons was adapted to account for the response to strong and long-lasting hyperpolarization. Without structural changes the model was then modified to fit the observed excitability of sensory axons. Changes in the excitability and safety margin during focal hyperthermia were studied in both motor and sensory axons of the median nerve, and the underlying mechanisms were explored using the new mathematical model. Finally, the involvement of Ih in the frequency preference of oscillation in human axons was investigated by developing resonance techniques that have hitherto never been used to study axonal function.

With an estimated 4.1 billion subscribers around the world, the mobile phone offers a unique opportunity to sense and understand human behaviour from location, co-presence and communication data. While the benefit of modelling this unprecedented amount of data is widely recognised, a number of challenges impede the development of accurate behaviour models. In this thesis, we identify and address two modelling problems and show that their consideration improves the accuracy of behaviour inference. We first examine the modelling of long-range dependencies in human behaviour. Human behaviour models only take into account short-range dependencies in mobile phone time series. Using information theory, we quantify long-range dependencies in mobile phone time series for the first time, demonstrate that they exhibit periodic oscillations and introduce novel tools to analyse them. We further show that considering what the user did 24 hours earlier improves accuracy when predicting user behaviour five hours or longer in advance. The second problem that we address is the modelling of temporal variations in human behaviour. The time spent by a user on an activity varies from one day to the next. In order to recognise behaviour patterns despite temporal variations, we establish a methodological connection between human behaviour modelling and biological sequence alignment. This connection allows us to compare, cluster and model behaviour sequences and introduce novel features for behaviour recognition which improve its accuracy. The experiments presented in this thesis have been conducted on the largest publicly available mobile phone dataset labelled in an unsupervised fashion and are entirely repeatable. Furthermore, our techniques only require cellular data which can easily be recorded by today's mobile phones and could benefit a wide range of applications including life logging, health monitoring, customer profiling and large-scale surveillance.

We incorporate two types of human behavioural changes into the epidemic models. First, a two-subpopulation imitation dynamic model is constructed via the replicator dynamical equations to study the self-initiated pre-cautionary health protective behaviour under the cost-benefit considerations and group pressure. Second, the impacts of additional characteristics of imperfect vaccine and the asymmetric property of smoothed best response on the vaccination behaviour are studied within the vaccination population game framework, and via the Gompertz function, respectively.

Evolutionary anthropology seeks answers to the eternal philosophical question: how have we come to be? Studies in evolutionary anthropology attempt to explain the evolution of uniquely human behaviours by investigating the mechanisms that drive different trajectories. In this thesis dynamic mathematical models are built to investigate the tradeoffs defining divergent evolutionary pathways of strategic choice. This is done by comparing evolutionary equilibria at great ape-like and hunter-gatherer-like life histories. One investigation considers the evolution of pair bonding in humans. Mate guarding that pays off in increased likelihood of obtaining paternities outperforms strategies of paternal care at hunter-gatherer-like male-biased sex ratios while multiple mating is the evolutionary equilibrium at chimpanzee-like female-biased sex ratios. This demonstrates the promise of mate guarding as a pathway to social monogamy and links male reproductive strategies to the grandmother hypothesis through sex ratio dependence. Competition and care as male reproductive strategies are then investigated more generally in an ordinary differential equation model. Equilibria depend on life history and benefit parameters. An integro-difference equation model that explores the effect of non-parental imitation on the coevolution of low fertility at high socio-economic status is also given, applying Darwinian selection to a contemporary case of cultural evolution. This thesis shows that competitive strategies often pay off at human-like parameters despite the possibility of increased offspring survivorship through care. However, coexistence or persistence of a non-competitive strategy may also occur under specific parameters. Uncovering drivers of the evolution of different male reproductive strategies is important for guiding further research and shedding light on why we are so different from other great apes.

Agent-based models (ABM) are an increasingly important research tool for describing and predicting interactions among humans and their environment. A key challenge for such models is the ability to faithfully represent human decision making with respect to observed behaviour. This thesis aims to address this challenge by developing a methodology for empirical measurement and simulation of decision making in humanenvironment systems. The methodology employs the Beliefs-Desires-Intentions (BDI) model of human reasoning to directly translate empirically measured decision data into artificial agents, based on sound theoretical principles. A common simulated decision environment is used for both eliciting human decision making behaviour, and validating artificial agents. Using this approach facilitates the collection of decision making narratives by way of participatory simulation, and promotes a fair comparison of real and modelled decision making. The methodology is applied in two case studies: One to carry out a trial involving human subjects solving an abstract land-use problem, and another to examine the feasibility of up-scaling the methodology to a real agricultural scenario—dairy farming. Results from the experiments indicate that the BDI-based methodology achieved reasonably direct encoding of decision making behaviour from elicited human narratives. The main limitations found with the technique are: (1) the significant use of subjects’ time required to elicit their decision making behaviour; (2) the significant programming effort required; and (3) the challenge of aggregating behaviour from multiple subjects into a generalised decision making model. In spite of its limitations, BDI has shown its strengths as a tool for empirical analysis and simulation of decision making in research of human-environment systems.

Human dental tissues are fascinating nano-structured hierarchical materials that combine organic and mineral phases in an intricate and ingenious way to obtain remarkable combinations of mechanical strength, thermal endurance, wear resistance and chemical stability. Attempts to imitate and emulate this performance have been made since time immemorial, in order to provide replacement (e.g. in dental prosthodontics) or to develop artificial materials with similar characteristics (e.g. light armour). The key objectives of the present project are to understand the structure-property relationships that underlie the integrity of natural materials, human dental tissues in particular, and the multi-scale architecture of mineralized tissues and its evolution under thermal treatment and mechanical loading. The final objective is to derive ideas for designing and manufacturing novel artificial materials serving biomimetic purposes. The objectives are achieved using the combination of a range of characterization techniques, with particular attention paid to the synchrotron X-ray scattering (Small- and Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering, SAXS and WAXS) and imaging techniques (Micro Computed Tomography), as well as microscopy techniques such as Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Mechanical properties were characterized by nanoindentation and photoelasticity; and thermal analysis was carried out via thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Experimental observations were critically examined and matched by advanced numerical simulation of the tissue under thermal-mechanical loading. SAXS and WAXS provided the initial basis for elucidating the structure-property relationships in human dentine and enamel through in situ experimentation. Four principal types of experiment were used to examine the thermal and mechanical behaviour of the hierarchical structure of human dental tissue and contributed to the Chapters of this thesis: (i) In situ elastic strain evolution under loading within the hydroxyapatite (HAp) in both dentine and enamel. An improved multi-scale Eshelby inclusion model was proposed taking into account the two-level hierarchical structure, and was validated against the experimental strain evaluation data. The achieved agreement indicates that the multi-scale model accurately reflects the structural arrangement of human dental tissue and its response to applied forces. (ii) The morphology of the dentine-enamel junction (DEJ) was examined by a range of techniques, including X-ray imaging and diffraction. The transition of mechanical properties across the DEJ was evaluated by the high resolution mapping and in situ compression measurement, followed by a brief description of the thermal behaviour of DEJ. The results show that DEJ is a narrow band of material with graded structure and mechanical properties, rather than a discrete interface. (iii) Further investigation regarding the thermo-mechanical structure-property relationships in human dental tissues was carried out by nanoindentation mapping of the nano-mechanical properties in ex situ thermally treated dental tissues. (iv) In order to understand the details of the thermal behaviour, in situ heat treatment was carried out on both human dental tissues and synthetic HAp crystallites. For the first time the in situ ultrastructural alteration of natural and synthetic HAp crystallites was captured in these experiments. The results presented in this thesis contribute to the fundamental understanding of the structure-property integrity mechanisms of natural materials, human dental tissues in particular. These results were reported in several first author publications in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and a book chapter.

In order to get a better insight into the function of the human middle ear it is necessary to simulate its dynamic behaviour by means of the finite-element method. Three-dimensional measurements of the surfaces of the tympanic membrane and of the auditory ossicles malleus, incus and stapes are carried out and geometrical models are created. On the basis of these data, finite-element models are constructed and the dynamic behaviour of the combinations tympanic membrane with malleus in its elastic suspensions and stapes with annular ligament is simulated. Natural frequencies and mode shapes are computed by modal analysis. These investigations showed that the ossicles can be treated as rigid bodies only in a restricted frequency range from 0 to 3.5 kHz
Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich

In order to get a better insight into the function of the human middle ear it is necessary to simulate its dynamic behaviour by means of the finite-element method. Three-dimensional measurements of the surfaces of the tympanic membrane and of the auditory ossicles malleus, incus and stapes are carried out and geometrical models are created. On the basis of these data, finite-element models are constructed and the dynamic behaviour of the combinations tympanic membrane with malleus in its elastic suspensions and stapes with annular ligament is simulated. Natural frequencies and mode shapes are computed by modal analysis. These investigations showed that the ossicles can be treated as rigid bodies only in a restricted frequency range from 0 to 3.5 kHz.
Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.

Progress towards sustainability requires changes in our individual and collective behaviour. Yet, our fundamental understanding of behaviour in relation to environmental change remains severely limited. In particular, little attention has been given to how individual and collective behaviours respond to, and are shaped by, non-linear environmental change (such as ‘regime shifts’) and its inherent uncertainties. The thesis makes two main contributions to the literature: 1) it provides one of the first accounts of human behaviour and collective action in relation to ecological regime shifts and associated uncertainties; and 2) extends the incipient behavioural common-pool resource literature that acknowledges social-ecological dynamics and ecological complexity. The overarching aim of this thesis is to further advance an empirically grounded understanding of human behaviour in social-ecological systems. In particular, the thesis attempts to unravel critical social-ecological factors and mechanisms for the sustainability of common-pool resources. This is especially relevant for contexts in which livelihoods can be more directly threatened by regime shifts. The following methods are applied: behavioural economic experiments in the lab (with students; Papers I and II) and in the field (with small-scale fishers from four different communities in the Colombian Caribbean; Paper III), and agent-based modelling empirically informed by a subset of the lab experiments (Paper IV). Paper I tests the effect of an endogenously driven regime shift on the emergence of cooperation and sustainable resource use. Paper II tests the effect of different risk levels of such a regime shift. The regime shift in both papers has negative consequences for the productivity of the shared resource. Paper III assesses the effect of different degrees of uncertainty about a climate-induced threshold in stock dynamics on the exploitation patterns; as well as the role of social and ecological local context. Paper IV explores critical individual-level factors and processes affecting the simultaneous emergence of collective action and sustainable resource use. Results cumulatively suggest that existing scientific knowledge indicating the potential for ecological regime shifts should be communicated to affected local communities, including the remaining uncertainties, as this information can encourage collective action for sustainable resource use. Results also highlight the critical role of ecological knowledge, knowledge-sharing, perceived ecological uncertainties, and the role local contexts play for sustainable outcomes. This thesis enriches the literature on social-ecological systems by demonstrating how a behavioural experimental approach can contribute new insights relevant for sustainability. Overall, these insights indicate that, given the opportunity and the willingness of people to come together, share knowledge, exchange ideas, and build trust, potential ecological crises can encourage collective action, and uncertainties can be turned into opportunities for dealing with change in constructive ways. This provides a hopeful outlook in the face of escalating environmental change and inherent uncertainties.

At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.

The effectiveness of an emergency response during an incident is often affected by the lack of information provided to the people within the situation about the current conditions. Deaths in large-scale fires are often likely to have been caused by delays in the occupants receiving relevant information on the fire and egress routes. This is why pre-movement behaviour, which is defined as the behaviour which occurs before an alarm is sounded and includes the activities which occur between the alarm sounding and the occupants beginning to move towards an exit, is believed to be generally more important to survival than the actual movement speed. It is the unpredictability and complexity of human behaviour that is the most influential factor on the success / failure of an evacuation plan. Unfortunately, evacuation plans rely on the use of purposely designed egress routes which often are not the common everyday exits. These specifically designed egress routes, which an engineer may assume will be used during an evacuation, are often ignored by occupants due to the lack of information and noticeable distinguishing features. Having occupants moving in directions away from these intended routes may result in the increasing possibility of occupants finding themselves in a dangerous situation, ultimately leading to potential loss of life. The value of a sensor-linked fire model has been demonstrated and the potential for interpretation of human behaviour shown. However, there are many challenges in representing and interpreting data on human behaviour. Within most emergency evacuation situations, occupants will often walk past emergency exits without using them and exit through the main entrance or main exit, as displayed during an evacuation experiment held in IKEA in 1996. Problems occur because occupants will rely on the familiar exits over the closest emergency exit, which could be potentially overcome by the use of an information driven evacuation system. The main function of the Information Driven Evacuation System or I.D.E.S. is to provide occupants with information on the most appropriate egress paths within a building based on the development of the fire and the movement of other occupants. The system is a combination of real-time sensor data, a prediction modelling tool and the information driven way-finding tools. However, as all three processes are independent systems, a central server will be required in order to ensure that all the different processes are speaking the same language and that the information from one system can be understood by another. of the components within the system interact with each other. The basis of the system will combine the use of sensors within a building and specific way-finding tools to give the I.D.E.S. the ability to change the information provided by the way-finding tools by having the sensors within the building interfacing with a computer server. This server will incorporate a modelling program that will have ability to assess the data gathered by the sensors, and use the servers “intelligence” (i.e. predicting capabilities) to alter the information provided by the way-finding tools. The server will also have the ability to use the sensor data to predict the development of the fire and the movement / behaviours of the occupants. The way-finding tools used within the I.D.E.S. would have the primary goal of relaying the information to the occupants within the building through the use of both audio (e.g. directional speakers) and visual (e.g. flashing lights) capabilities. Basic audio and visual tools are already used as common features of an evacuation plan [9] and include exit signage and alarm bell/sirens. The computer model used as part of the “intelligence” of the server will need to have predicative capabilities that incorporate information provided in real time. It is believed that the combination of these tools will be able to provide the occupants with the information required to evacuate the building in a safe and efficient way without causing confusion, thus reducing the possibility of stress and anxiety. However, the solution will only work if the combination of the tools, sensors and systems are able to be integrated into a central control panel that can be understood and used effectively by fire service and/or security staff. The following is the Chapter breakdown of the thesis: Chapter 1 discusses the nature of the problem that is to be addressed by the I.D.E.S. as well as the proposed solution and the overall concept of the system. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the system to be developed as part of this thesis, via a graphical overview as well discussing the current status of the system and an higher level summary. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 discusses the background research and information gathered on the current code requirements for an evacuation design, the current theories and completed research focusing on the human behaviour of occupants during an evacuation, and the development of computer modelling programs and their historical implementation. Chapter 6 focuses and describes the development of predictive modelling, the limitations that dictates the modelling process, the requirements of the I.D.E.S. modelling programme and a review of the possible programmes for their ability to be used as part of the system. Chapter 7 covers each of the three evacuation experimental series that were conducted as part of this thesis. The purpose of each of the relevant experiment is covered, the results gathered, the analysis of the research, and how the results influenced the development of the simulation methodology. Chapter 8 focuses on the development of the modelling programme, based on the experimental data gathered, and presents a feasibility study that will demonstrate how the system would work during a simulated real life evacuation based on the information gathered from the experiments using the updated CRISP program and the hypothetical installation of the system within an existing building, located in Auckland, New Zealand. The possible further evolution of the system is discussed in Chapter 10.

Enamel plays an important role in tooth function. Optimal combinations of composition and structure endow enamel with unique mechanical properties that remain largely unexplored. Specifically, more detailed understanding of the loadbearing ability of enamel is needed to mimic it synthetically and to design next generation biocomposite materials. This research investigates the variables that influence deformation behaviour of tooth enamel in relation to its hierarchical structure. Initially, a new method was developed for preparing flat, finely polished tooth samples that were maintained in their normal hydrated state for nanoindentation testing. In contrast to conventional methods, which commonly utilise either inappropriate or excessive drying and/or chemically based embedding media (i.e., resins, glues), a novel embedding process was developed using an aqueous putty compound. Additionally, a custom-designed holder was manufactured for mounting wet tooth specimens on the nanoindentation stage that eliminated the need for hot wax or glue during testing. Considering that enamel is a functionally graded material that has different values of Young’s modulus (E) and hardness (H) over the enamel thickness, a new approach of data analysis was developed for interpreting the mechanical properties of enamel at a range of fixed constant indentation depths. Resultant functions were used for predictive purposes. The values of E and H obtained from the nanoindentation instrument demonstrated a well-known decreasing gradient from the enamel occlusal surface towards the enamel-dentine junction (EDJ). In contrast to studies using conventional methods, this research showed that both properties also decreased with increasing depths at fixed locations. Furthermore, experimental results showed that resin embedding had detrimental effects on the E and H of enamel (i.e., both properties decreased with increasing depth), but had positive effects on both mild and severe wear resistance parameters (i.e., both parameters increased with increasing depth). When contrasted against the mechanical properties of enamel samples prepared using conventional protocols, this study postulates that the new hydrated method has, for the first time, revealed the genuine E and H properties of this tissue. The effects of sample preparation methods on tooth microstructure, especially along the EDJ, were investigated with optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The new method of sample preparation combined with a careful dehydration process maintained the integrity of the EDJ interface even after applying multiple Berkovich indents up to maximum load of 400 mN. In contrast, the EDJ and the enamel surface were commonly separated and fractured in teeth that had been resin-embedded. Accordingly, the new method of sample preparation proved to be reliable for investigating the genuine microstructural characteristics of teeth. The behaviour of the elastic region in tooth enamel was investigated with analytical and finite element models. The models were fitted into experimental values of E obtained from nanoindentation tests with a Berkovich indenter to identify a relationship between the mechanical responses of enamel under different loading conditions and microstructure. The decrease in E for enamel with increasing indentation depth was related to its enhanced load-bearing ability. The change of E was directly linked to the microstructural evolution (i.e., the rotation of mineral crystals) of enamel. The effective crystal orientation angle was found to be between 44o and 48o for indentation depths from 0.8 and 2.4 μm below according to the analytical model. The range of angles facilitated the shear sliding of mineral crystals and reduced the stress level as well as the volume of material under higher loads. The behaviour of the plastic region in healthy enamel was investigated with finite element models fitted to nanoindentation data obtained with a Berkovich indenter to determine deformation mechanisms that result in excellent mechanical responses for tooth enamel during loading. When nanoindentation was conducted with increasingly applied loads but at a fixed location, the values of H decreased with increasing indentation depth. The decreasing trend in H was simulated by finite element models and showed a reduction in stress level and yield strength with increasing load. This key mechanism of the loading dependence of mechanical properties resulted in remarkable enamel resilience and was related to the change of effective crystal orientation angle within the enamel microstructure. The mechanical behaviour of enamel with respect to its microstructure was also investigated on teeth exposed to commercially available whitening treatments (tooth bleaching). Enamels exposed to a 6% bleaching treatment exhibited degraded mechanical properties (E and H) compared to unbleached controls. Furthermore, the creep and recovery responses of bleached enamel were also significantly reduced compared to controls. To determine the variables regulating tooth enamel deformation mechanisms during whitening treatments, analytical models were fitted to stress-strain curves. The effective crystal orientation angle of healthy enamel and the protein shear stress, τc, were identified as 50o and 2.5 % of the transverse stiffness of a staggered composite (E2), respectively. After the bleaching treatment, the effective crystal orientation angle of enamel increased to 54o for τc = 1.5 % of E2. Notably, bleaching reduced shear (τc) by 40 % compared to normal readings for unbleached controls. The changes in mechanical responses of bleached enamel were linked to the decrease of the shear bearing ability of protein components in the enamel microstructure. It is envisaged that these findings will provide new perspectives on applications of bleaching treatments and lead to the development of bleaching agents with less damaging effects to healthy enamel. This work should stimulate new interest in understanding the deformation behaviour of tooth enamel at small scales, and offer new methods for the collection and analysis of data from samples prepared close to their native state, upon which novel and biologically relevant high-performance biocomposite materials can be engineered.

Crowd simulation has been widely used to simulate crowd dynamics and their behaviours. However, majority of existing studies can only simulate a specific scenario or behaviour. Although recent developments have attempted to integrate different individual behaviours in order to achieve a more realistic simulation result, it is still very complex and those crowd models often require significant modifications. This study is therefore aimed to develop a generic crowd model, which provides the flexibility to configure and represent different scenarios, as well as the ability to demonstrate individual differences on crowd behaviours. The theoretical principle of the proposed crowd model is based on the combination of force-based modelling and agent-based modelling. A unified core mathematical formula, which contains seven key parameters, is developed to represent the generic behaviour effects. In addition, a Behaviour Library is developed to present a set of basic behaviours by using the unified formula and subsequently, more complex behaviours could be formed by combining the basic behaviours. The proposed crowd model is implemented in a simulation environment by using Microsoft XNA framework. A number of well-known crowd behaviours are tested with the crowd model for validation. The proposed crowd model is further validated by simulating real life experiments and comparing its results. This research study presents a novel approach to simulate crowd behaviour at individual level by introducing a generic crowd model that can be configured into specific scenarios. It introduces a theoretical concept, through which different behaviour effects could be quantified by a unified mathematical formula. As a result, crowd modelling and simulation of different scenarios can be significantly simplified. For future work, the proposed crowd model can be tested under complex environment in order to fine-tune its theoretical model and to expand the Behaviour Library.

With the rapid growth of information on the Web, the study of information searching has let to an increased interest. Information behaviour (IB) researchers and information systems (IS) developers are continuously exploring user - Web search interactions to understand and to help users to provide assistance with their information searching. In attempting to develop models of IB, several studies have identified various factors that govern user's information searching and information retrieval (IR), such as age, gender, prior knowledge and task complexity. However, how users' contextual factors, such as cognitive styles, affect Web search interactions has not been clearly explained by the current models of Web Searching and IR. This study explores the influence of users' cognitive styles on their Web search behaviour. The main goal of the study is to enhance Web search models with a better understanding of how these cognitive styles affect Web searching. Modelling Web search behaviour with a greater understanding of user's cognitive styles can help information science researchers and IS designers to bridge the semantic gap between the user and the IS. To achieve the aims of the study, a user study with 50 participants was conducted. The study adopted a mixed method approach incorporating several data collection strategies to gather a range of qualitative and quantitative data. The study utilised pre-search and post-search questionnaires to collect the participants' demographic information and their level of satisfaction about the search interactions. Riding's (1991) Cognitive Style Analysis (CSA) test was used to assess the participants' cognitive styles. Participants completed three predesigned search tasks and the whole user - web search interactions, including thinkaloud, were captured using a monitoring program. Data analysis involved several qualitative and quantitative techniques: the quantitative data gave raise to detailed findings about users' Web searching and cognitive styles, the qualitative data enriched the findings with illustrative examples. The study results provide valuable insights into Web searching behaviour among different cognitive style users. The findings of the study extend our understanding of Web search behaviour and how users search information on the Web. Three key study findings emerged: • Users' Web search behaviour was demonstrated through information searching strategies, Web navigation styles, query reformulation behaviour and information processing approaches while performing Web searches. The manner in which these Web search patterns were demonstrated varied among the users with different cognitive style groups. • Users' cognitive styles influenced their information searching strategies, query reformulation behaviour, Web navigational styles and information processing approaches. Users with particular cognitive styles followed certain Web search patterns. • Fundamental relationships were evident between users' cognitive styles and their Web search behaviours; and these relationships can be illustrated through modelling Web search behaviour. Two models that depict the associations between Web search interactions, user characteristics and users' cognitive styles were developed. These models provide a greater understanding of Web search behaviour from the user perspective, particularly how users' cognitive styles influence their Web search behaviour. The significance of this research is twofold: it will provide insights for information science researchers, information system designers, academics, educators, trainers and librarians who want to better understand how users with different cognitive styles perform information searching on the Web; at the same time, it will provide assistance and support to the users. The major outcomes of this study are 1) a comprehensive analysis of how users search the Web; 2) extensive discussion on the implications of the models developed in this study for future work; and 3) a theoretical framework to bridge high-level search models and cognitive models.

Les agents dans un environnement d'apprentissage peuvent avoir divers rôles et comportements sociaux qui peuvent influencer les objectifs et la motivation des apprenants de différentes manières. L'apprentissage autorégulé (SRL) est un cadre conceptuel complet qui englobe les aspects cognitifs, métacognitifs, comportementaux, motivationnels et affectifs de l'apprentissage et implique les processus de définition d'objectifs, de suivi des progrès, d'analyse des commentaires, d'ajustement des objectifs et des actions de l'apprenant. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons une interaction d'apprentissage multi-agent impliquant divers rôles d'agent pédagogique visant à améliorer l'autorégulation de l'apprenant tout en s'engageant dans une activité d'apprentissage socialement partagée. Nous avons utilisé des rôles distincts d'agents, définis par leurs attitudes sociales et leurs compétences, pour proposer des stratégies d'échafaudage de régulation spécifiques à l'apprenant. La méthodologie suivie dans cette thèse a commencé par la définition de rôles d'agent pédagogique dans un contexte de régulation socialement partagé et le développement d'une tâche d'apprentissage collaboratif pour faciliter l'autorégulation. Une série d'études d'utilisateurs a été menée pour comprendre les perceptions des apprenants sur les rôles des agents, les comportements associés et la tâche d'apprentissage. Dans l'ensemble, les travaux présentés dans cette thèse explorent comment divers rôles d'agents peuvent être utilisés pour fournir un échafaudage de régulation aux apprenants dans un contexte d'apprentissage socialement partagé
Agents in a learning environment can have various roles and social behaviours that can influence the goals and motivation of the learners in distinct ways. Self-regulated learning (SRL) is a comprehensive conceptual framework that encapsulates the cognitive, metacognitive, behavioural, motivational and affective aspects of learning and entails the processes of goal setting, monitoring progress, analyzing feedback, adjustment of goals and actions by the learner. In this thesis, we present a multi-agent learning interaction involving various pedagogical agent roles aiming to improve the self-regulation of the learner while engaging in a socially shared learning activity. We used distinct roles of agents, defined by their social attitudes and competence characteristics, to deliver specific regulation scaffolding strategies for the learner. The methodology followed in this Thesis started with the definition of pedagogical agent roles in a socially shared regulation context and the development of a collaborative learning task to facilitate self-regulation. Based on the learning task framework, we proposed a shared learning interaction consisting of a tutor agent providing external regulation support focusing on the performance of the learner and a peer agent demonstrating co-regulation strategies to promote self-regulation in the learner. A series of user studies have been conducted to understand the learner perceptions about the agent roles, related behaviours and the learning task. Altogether, the work presented in this thesis explores how various roles of agents can be utilised in providing regulation scaffolding to the learners in a socially shared learning context

La génération de gestes expressifs permet aux agents conversationnels animés (ACA) d'articuler un discours d'une manière semblable à celle des humains. Le thème central du manuscrit est d'exploiter et contrôler l'expressivité comportementale des ACA en modélisant le comportement multimodal que les humains utilisent pendant la communication. Le but est (1) d’exploiter la prosodie de la parole, la prosodie visuelle et le langage dans le but de synthétiser des comportements expressifs pour les ACA; (2) de contrôler le style des gestes synthétisés de manière à pouvoir les générer avec le style de n'importe quel locuteur. Nous proposons un modèle de synthèse de gestes faciaux à partir du texte et la parole; et entraîné sur le corpus TEDx que nous avons collecté. Nous proposons ZS-MSTM 1.0, une approche permettant de synthétiser des gestes stylisés du haut du corps à partir du contenu du discours d'un locuteur source et correspondant au style de tout locuteur cible. Il est entraîné sur le corpus PATS qui inclut des données multimodales de locuteurs ayant des styles de comportement différents. Il n'est pas limité aux locuteurs de PATS, et génère des gestes dans le style de n'importe quel nouveau locuteur vu ou non par notre modèle, sans entraînement supplémentaire, ce qui rend notre approche «zero-shot». Le style comportemental est modélisé sur les données multimodales des locuteurs - langage, gestes et parole - et indépendamment de l'identité du locuteur. Nous proposons ZS-MSTM 2.0 pour générer des gestes faciaux stylisés en plus des gestes du haut du corps. Ce dernier est entraîné sur une extension de PATS, qui inclut des actes de dialogue et des repères faciaux en 2D
The generation of expressive gestures allows Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) to articulate the speech intent and content in a human-like fashion. The central theme of the manuscript is to leverage and control the ECAs’ behavioral expressivity by modelling the complex multimodal behavior that humans employ during communication. The driving forces of the Thesis are twofold: (1) to exploit speech prosody, visual prosody and language with the aim of synthesizing expressive and human-like behaviors for ECAs; (2) to control the style of the synthesized gestures such that we can generate them with the style of any speaker. With these motivations in mind, we first propose a semantically aware and speech-driven facial and head gesture synthesis model trained on the TEDx Corpus which we collected. Then we propose ZS-MSTM 1.0, an approach to synthesize stylized upper-body gestures, driven by the content of a source speaker’s speech and corresponding to the style of any target speakers, seen or unseen by our model. It is trained on PATS Corpus which includes multimodal data of speakers having different behavioral style. ZS-MSTM 1.0 is not limited to PATS speakers, and can generate gestures in the style of any newly coming speaker without further training or fine-tuning, rendering our approach zero-shot. Behavioral style is modelled based on multimodal speakers’ data - language, body gestures, and speech - and independent from the speaker’s identity ("ID"). We additionally propose ZS-MSTM 2.0 to generate stylized facial gestures in addition to the upper-body gestures. We train ZS-MSTM 2.0 on PATS Corpus, which we extended to include dialog acts and 2D facial landmarks

This thesis presents a research model to investigate university-students’ acceptance and behaviour in relation to social-networking sites (SNS). In order to carry out this investigation, the research project was divided into two phases using qualitative and quantitative data based on a diverse sample of university students. Phase One used a think-aloud technique to explore the interaction experiences associated with students’ use of Facebook, a popular social-networking site. Twenty-six participants from Teesside University took part in the first study and six categories of experience (communication, gratification, inquisitiveness, evocation, interconnection, apprehension, and ambience) were identified. Subsequently conceptual similarities were found between all six categories of experience and six psychological human needs (relatedness, pleasure, popularity, security, competence and meaning). In Phase Two, a research model was constructed, based on existing literature on technology acceptance and the psychological needs identified in Phase One. Results from an online survey of 766 university students in the United Kingdom, who were also SNS users, provided evidence for the proposed model. The model explained and predicted students’ adoption of SNS, accounting for half of the variance in behavioural intention and almost a quarter of the variance in actual use behaviour. The results showed that students’ personal beliefs, social identity and psychological human needs influenced their decision to adopt SNS. Specifically, user-perceived usefulness, ease of use, enjoyment and credibility were found to iv be important factors in students’ adoption of SNS. The influence of social identity on students’ behavioural intention was also found to be mediated by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Furthermore, the findings emphasise the importance of psychological human needs in students’ adoption of SNS. In particular, the need for relatedness was found to be a significant independent predictor of behavioural intention. Based on the results of this study, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This thesis presents a comparison between two simulation methods, namely Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and Agent Based Simulation (ABS). In our literature review we identified a gap in comparing the applicability of these methods to modelling human centric service systems. Hence, we have focused our research on reactive and different level of detail of proactive of human behaviour in service systems. The aim of the thesis is to establish a comparison for modelling human reactive and different level of detail of proactive behaviour in service systems using DES and ABS. To achieve this we investigate both the similarities and differences between model results performance and the similarities and differences in model difficulty performance. The comparison of the simulation methods is achieved by using a case study approach. We have conducted three case studies, the choice of our case study systems taking into consideration the number of different key proactive behaviours that can be observed. In the first case study (fitting room services) we consider single proactive staff behaviour, in the second case study (international support services) we consider two proactive staff behaviours and, finally, the third case study (airline check-in services) considers three proactive staff behaviours. The proactive behaviours considered are: taking charge from experience, taking the initiative to fulfil a goal and supervising by learning. To conduct our case studies we have created two sets of simulation models. The first set consists of one DES model for each of the case studies. As service systems have an organisational structure we could not implement our agent-based simulation models purely as agent-based models. Instead, for the second set we have created combined DES/ABS models (one for each case study), where the DES part represents the system and the ABS part represents the active entities inside the system (i.e. the people).With these models we have carried out two sets of experiments: Set A is concerned with modelling results performance, while set B is related to model difficulty performance. We have then conducted statistical analysis on the results of these experiments. Evidence from the experiments reveals that DES and combined DES/ABS are found suitable to model the reactive and most levels of proactive behaviour modelled in this thesis. In addition, combined DES/ABS is found more suitable for modelling higher levels of proactive behaviour (complex behaviour). Another finding from the experiments is that it is only worth representing complex proactive behaviour if it occurs frequently in the real system (considering the relation between modelling effort and impact). The contribution made by this thesis to the body of knowledge is the comparison of DES and combined DES/ABS for modelling human reactive and different level of detail of human proactive behaviour in service systems. This comparison will assist modellers who are new to the field of service systems modelling to make an informed decision on the method they should use for their own modelling, based on the level of proactiveness inherent in the real system and on the levels of difficulties they should expect for each method.

The focus of this thesis is on wayfinding within buildings from an evacuation/circulation modelling perspective. Majority of the existing evacuation models simplify the process of wayfinding by assigning the shortest path to all agents. This is not a realistic representation of the actual route choices made by people in circulation/evacuation conditions. Wayfinding is a dynamic process and cannot be modelled as a static process by assigning pre-determined routes to the agents. Wayfinding is thus a very important aspect to be modelled accurately within evacuation/circulation models to simulate more realistic human behaviour. The main goal of this thesis is to develop an agent based wayfinding model for the buildingEXODUS evacuation/circulation model. There were four major problems to be solved: spatial representation of the environment, implementation of graph search algorithms to generate choice set of routes for the agents to choose from, determination of factors that influence people‟s wayfinding behaviour and the development/integration of the agent based wayfinding model within the buildingEXODUS evacuation/circulation model. The existing spatial representation technique in buildingEXODUS was modified to best suit the requirement of the wayfinding model. Various graph search algorithms such as A*, Dijkstra and Yen‟s algorithm were studied. Alternate algorithms were developed to quickly generate routes and were compared with the performance of the Yen‟s algorithm. Two surveys were then developed and published on line. A total of 1200 participants from various countries took the survey. The survey results were statistically analysed and was utilised to model the decision making behaviour of the agents in the wayfinding model. An agent based wayfinding model was then developed incorporating features such as: spatial representation in terms of a graph, application of route choice set generating algorithms, agents with their individual attributes using multi criteria decision analysis methods to choose routes and changing routes dynamically on encountering congestion or gaining new exit knowledge. This wayfinding model was then integrated within the buildingEXODUS model. The buildingEXODUS model passes spatial information and agent location to the wayfinding model at the start of the simulation. The wayfinding model applies the graph search algorithms to generate routes and assigns routes (a set of target locations) to the agents. The buildingEXODUS model generates events under certain circumstances: when agents reach a target location, encounter congestion or learn the location of a new exit. The wayfinding model listens to these events and assigns a new route to the agents if an alternate route is more favourable than the initially chosen one. Therefore, there is constant communication between the fine node buildingEXODUS and the coarse node wayfinding models, with the latter being responsible for assigning routes to the agents and the former being responsible for navigating the agents from one target location to the next. Thus, a sophisticated wayfinding model incorporating data from surveys has been developed using C++ and has been integrated into the buildingEXODUS evacuation model. The introduction of the wayfinding model brought about significant changes to the evacuation statistics produced by the buildingEXODUS model. The difference was more significant in buildings where there was more than one path to an exit. The default option of the existing evacuation models is to assign the shortest path to all the agents in the simulation whereas with the wayfinding model, agents choose alternative paths based on other wayfinding criteria as well such as time, number of turns, etc.

Au sein du règne animal, les humains sont considérés comme possédant des capacités manuelles uniques. Cependant, nous ne savons toujours pas quelles sont les réelles capacités manuelles des primates, ni comment elles ont évolué. Les humains sont-ils réellement uniques ? Cette thèse vise à étudier les capacités de manipulation chez des Hominidés en lien avec l’anatomie et la fonction de leur main, en utilisant une approche interdisciplinaire combinant différentes approches : comportementale, morphologique, fonctionnelle et biomécanique. Pour quantifier les stratégies comportementales et les capacités de manipulation chez des Hominidés, j’ai mené une étude éthologique sur différents grands singes captifs et sur les humains au cours d’une même tâche complexe d'utilisation d'outils. J’ai utilisé des approches comparatives de morphométrie géométrique 3D sur le complexe trapézio-métacarpien combiné avec un modèle musculo-squelettique pour mieux interpréter les résultats comportementaux et pour tester le lien entre la morphométrie de la main et les contraintes biomécaniques durant l’utilisation d’outils chez les Hominidés. Les résultats de cette thèse montrent que les grands singes manifestent des capacités dynamiques de manipulation, mais que chaque espèce a ses propres spécificités. Plus de capacités dynamiques complexes, comme les mouvements intra-manuels, sont observés pour les bonobos et les gorilles que pour les orangs-outans. Les différents modes de vie des espèces peuvent expliquer cette variabilité. En outre, au cours de la tâche complexe d’utilisation d’outils, les humains montrent une meilleure performance que les grands singes et montrent des spécificités. Cette nouvelle approche intégrative montre clairement aussi que les différentes capacités de manipulation des Hominidés ne peuvent pas seulement être une conséquence des différentes morphologies de l’articulation trapézio-métacarpienne, mais aussi des différentes contraintes mécaniques liées à la morphométrie globale de la main. Ces résultats mettent en évidence la difficulté de déduire les capacités manuelles d’espèces fossiles à partir de certaines informations provenant de la forme de l'os, sans tenir compte de la morphométrie globale de la main et de son lien possible avec les contraintes biomécaniques. Cette thèse fournit de nouvelles informations sur les capacités manuelles des Hominidés, sur les différentes contraintes entourant ces capacités, et de nouvelles informations afin de mieux comprendre l'évolution des capacités manuelles chez les primates
Humans are considered to have unique manual abilities in the animal kingdom. However, we still do not know what the real manual abilities of primates are, nor how they evolved. Are humans really unique? This dissertation aims to investigate the manipulative abilities in Hominids related to their hand anatomy and function, using an interdisciplinary framework combining behavioral, morphological, functional, and biomechanical approaches. To quantify the behavioral strategies and manipulative abilities in Hominids, I have conducted an ethological study on different captive great apes and on humans during the same complex tool use task. I used 3D geometric morphometrics and comparative approaches on the trapeziometacarpal complex combined with a musculo-skeletal model to better interpret the behavioral results and to test the link between hand morphometric and biomechanical constraints during tool use in Hominids. The results of this PhD show that great apes demonstrate dynamic manipulative abilities but that each species has its own specificities. More complex dynamic abilities, such as in-hand movements, are observed for bonobos and gorillas than for orangutans. The different lifestyles of the species may explain this variability. Moreover, during the complex tool use task, humans perform better than great apes and show specificities. The new integrative approach also clearly shows that the different manipulative abilities of Hominids cannot only be a consequence of the different morphologies of the trapeziometacarpal joint but also of the different mechanical constraints related to the overall hand morphometric. These results highlight the difficulty to infer manual abilities in fossils from some bone shape information, without taking into account the overall morphometric of the hand and its possible link with biomechanical constraints. This PhD thesis provides new information on the manual abilities of Hominids, on the different constraints surrounding these abilities, and new information to better understand the evolution of manual abilities in primates

As novas tecnologias e as suas aplicações modificaram as nossas interações com o mundo que nos circunda. O advento da Internet, com a sua capilaridade e seu uso generalizo, foi a transformação mais importante e repentina dos últimos 30 anos. Minha pesquisa nasce da necessidade de entender como as pessoas interagem com a web, de compreender como a web está evoluindo, e de modelar os hábitos e comportamentos dos usuários da Internet. Logs que registram o comportamentos dos usuários interagindo com a web, coletados através de medições passivas, oferecem uma oportunidade inigualável para estudar esses fenômenos. Baseado nesse tipo de logs, o meu trabalho foca em dois aspectos complementares: (i) na análise da navegação dos usuários e (ii) na modelagem do comportamento dos usuários. Muitos desafios devem de ser enfrentados para viabilizar essa análise: medições passivas são em geral volumosas, ou seja \textit{big data}, e por isso requerem metodologias e infra-estrutura escaláveis para seu processamento. A análise dos dados necessita de métricas significativas e a introdução de metodologias inovadoras para a obtenção de informações confiáveis, filtradas, limpas e, sobretudo, úteis. A análise requer métodos estatísticos, de aprendizagem de máquina e de mineração de dados robustos. Além disso, a análise deve servir de base para a criação de modelos analíticos que sejam aderentes à realidade. Em soma, entender a aplicabilidade dos modelos é um passo fundamental para analisar possíveis cenários de uso e otimizar a performance dos serviços web. Durante o doutorado eu analisei três anos de dados de cerca de 30\,000 consumidores de Internet de alta velocidade, reconstruindo a atividade dos usuários na web. Reconstruí as suas atividades de navegação, destacando a evolução no uso de diferentes dispositivos, a estrutura da navegação e a interação dos usuários com as redes sociais e os motores de busca. Introduzi uma nova metodologia de aprendizado de máquina para identificar páginas web e sites intencionalmente solicitados pelos usuários nos logs de medidas passivas. A partir dessas informações, demonstrei ser possível criar uma assinatura baseado nos sites visitados por cada usuário, que pode ser utilizadas para re-identificar usuários, com claras implicações para a privacidade on-line. Modelei a sequência de serviços visitados pelos usuários na web, representando-os de forma sucinta e interpretável. Mostrei como extrair automaticamente grupos de sites similares ou conectados, agrupando os interesses de usuários e de comunidades. Também modelei a interação dos usuários com sistemas de recomendação on-line, apresentando um modelo de comportamento que captura o impacto da dinâmica temporal dos anúncios exibidos nas páginas. Finalmente, mostrei como melhorar os ganhos de uma plataforma de propaganda digital, otimizando os horários nos quais os anúncios deveriam ser exibidos aos usuários. Os resultados dessa tese têm várias implicações para diferentes personagens na Internet e para a comunidade acadêmica. Na atual transformação digital, todas as pessoas e todos os objetos estão produzindo dados que podem ser explorados para criar novas aplicações revolucionarias. A análise dos dados de navegação nos permite realizar transformações incríveis não só na web, mas também em nossas cidades, na industria e na produção de energia. Aproveitar o conhecimento do comportamento do usuário obtido a partir de medições na rede e depois modelar e otimizar os sistemas, como feito neste trabalho, será um fator chave para a concepção de futuras cidades inteligentes.
Le nuove tecnologie e le loro applicazioni modificano il nostro approccio con ciò che ci circonda. L'avvento di Internet, con la sua capillarità e pervasività, è stata la trasformazione più importante e repentina degli ultimi 30 anni. La mia ricerca è stata guidata dalla necessità di capire come le persone interagiscano con il web, di catturare come il web stesso cambi, e di modellare le abitudini e i comportamenti degli utenti. Tracce e registri dell'attività online, altrimenti dette misure passive, offrono informazioni inestimabili per raggiungere questi obiettivi. Grazie a queste tracce, il mio lavoro si concentra nello studiare il comportamento delle persone quando navigano su Internet, da due punti di vista complementari: (i) l'analisi dei dati di navigazione e (ii) i modelli analitici di comportamento. Tuttavia, vi sono molteplici sfide da affrontare: questo tipo di dati, detti \textit{big data}, necessitano di hardware e software scalabili, e dell'introduzione di metodologie e metriche innovative per ottenere informazioni che siano pulite, affidabili e soprattutto utili. L'analisi dati viene eseguita grazie a metodi statistici, di machine learning e di data mining. Inoltre, l'analisi è un prerequisito per costruire dei modelli analitici dei fenomeni studiati, che siano il più possibile aderenti alla realtà. Infine, capire l'applicabilità dei modelli costruiti è un passaggio fondamentale per ottimizzare le prestazioni e capire i possibili scenari. Più in dettaglio, durante il mio dottorato, ho analizzato 3 anni di dati di circa 30\,000 abitazioni, e ne ho ricostruito le attività online. Grazie a ciò, ho potuto mostrare l'evoluzione nell'utilizzo di diversi dispositivi, la struttura intrinseca delle navigazioni e l'interazione con le reti sociali e i motori di ricerca. Ho introdotto dei sistemi automatici per identificare le pagine e i servizi web intenzionalmente richiesti. Ho anche analizzato la costruzione di profili degli utenti, tracciando i loro domini visitati, per poi mostrare come poterli re-identificare nel futuro. Ho modellato le sequenze di siti visti, rappresentandole succintamente in una maniera facilmente interpretabile. Ho mostrato come estrarre automaticamente gruppi di siti web simili in contenuto o strettamente relazionati, e come riunire interessi e trend di utenti singoli o intere comunità. Ho anche modellato l'interazione con i sistemi di raccomandazione, introducendo un modello di comportamento umano che cattura l'impatto della dinamica temporale delle pubblicità mostrate. Infine, ho migliorato sperimentalmente i ricavi di una piattaforma di pubblicità, ottimizzandone i tempi di visualizzazione delle inserzioni. I miei risultati hanno diverse implicazioni per i molteplici attori nel panorama web e per il mondo della ricerca. Seguendo un corretto approccio scientifico, I dataset usati in questa tesi sono resi disponibili in modo anonimizzato per la comunità, in modo da garantire la riproducibilità dei miei risultati. Inoltre, il tema della privacy online in un mondo in forte cambiamento è stato affrontato e analizzato, con l'obiettivo di trovare un compromesso tra il bisogno di ottenere la conoscenza per lo sviluppo delle tecnologie e la necessità di non violare la riservatezza degli individui. Infine, l'attuale trasformazione digitale comporta che tutte le persone e oggetti producono dati che possano essere sfruttati per creare sconvolgenti possibilità. L'analisi dati ci permette di realizzare incredibili trasformazioni non solo di Internet, ma anche nelle nostre città, nella produzione di energia o nell'industria. Sfruttare i comportamenti delle persone che si ottengono attraverso questi dati, modellare e ottimizzare le prestazioni dei sistemi così come ho fatto in questo lavoro, sarà un fattore chiave per progettare le città intelligenti di un futuro molto vicino.
New technologies and services strongly transform our approach with the world. The Internet and its pervasive use was certainly the most dramatic leap in the last 30 years. My research was driven by the need to understand how people interact with the web, capturing its characteristics and changes, and modelling people's inner habits and interactions. Traces and logs of users' behaviours collected in the Internet (i.e., passive measurements) offer invaluable information to obtain this goal. Thanks to these passive traces, my work focuses on studying the behaviour of the users on the Internet, with focus on two complementary aspects: (i) data analytics, and (ii) user modelling. There are many key challenges to face: (big) data requires the use of scalable software and hardware. It demands also the introduction of innovative methodologies and meaningful metric to obtain trustable, filtered, clean and useful information. Data analytics is performed by means of a variety of statistical, machine learning and data mining approaches. Moreover, it is also a pre-requisite for creating analytical models of the studied phenomena, that should be as much as possible adherent to the reality. Lastly, understanding the applicability of derived models is a fundamental step for optimizing performances and understanding possible scenarios. More in details, during my PhD I analyzed 3 years of data of about 30\,000 households. I reconstruct users' online activity. Thanks to this, I was able to highlight device usage evolution, the intrinsic structure of the navigation and the interactions with social networks and search engines. I introduced a new machine learning approach to identify the intentionally visited web-pages and web-sites. Then, I built specific users' profiles, fingerprinting their visited domains, and then I showed how to re-identify users in a future time. I modelled the sequence of the visited web services, representing them in a succinct and interpretable manner. I showed that I can automatically extract groups of similar or likely connected web-sites, and monitor the interests and browsing patterns of single users or communities. I also modelled the user interaction with online recommendation systems, introducing a user behavioural model that captures the impact of the temporal dynamics of shown advertisement. Lastly, I demonstrate how to improve the revenue of an advertisement platform, optimizing the timings when ads are shown to users. My findings have several direct implications to the different Internet actors and to the research community. Following the scientific approach, I made available the anonymized datasets for the community, in order to guarantee the reproducibility of my results. Moreover, I addressed the problem of privacy online in today changing world, with the objective of finding a trade-off between the desire to obtain knowledge for shaping new technologies and the need to not violate the privacy of individuals. Finally, the current digital transformation implicates that everyone and everything produce data that can be exploited to create new disruptive capabilities. Data analytics allows us to realize incredible transformations not only in the web, but also in our cities, in the energy production, and in manufacturing. Exploiting the knowledge of the users' behaviour from these data, modelling and optimizing system performances as I did in my work, will be a key factor for designing near future smart-cities.

In this article, a performance assessment of the evacuation system is established for educational buildings. Structural and geotechnical information of the building is collected and introduced into a database. A similar procedure was realized for the information related to the occupants. Using this information, a) the structural fragility and localized collapse were determined and b) the interaction of the person with the partial collapse was established. For the first aspect, nonlinear time history was used, and for the second, the agent-based modeling was applied to recreate the reaction of people that face the micro collapse. Therefore, the important results of this evaluation are: 1) To localize collapsed beans and columns that make inoperable evacuation routes, 2) to localize bottleneck areas that people concentration during evacuation, and 3) quantification of affected people, in terms of persons caught up in the building that cannot evacuate.

The aim of Human Computer Interaction or HCI is to both understand and improve the quality of the users' experience with the systems and technology they interact with. Recent HCI research requirements have stated a need for a unified predictive approach to system design that consolidates system engineering, cognitive modelling, and design principles into a single 'total system approach.' At present, few methods seek to integrate all three of these aspects into a single method and of those that do many are extensions to existing engineering techniques. This thesis, however proposes a new behaviour based approach designed to identify usability problems early in the design process before testing the system with actual users. In order to address the research requirements, this model uses a new design notation called Genetic Software Engineering (GSE) in conjunction with aspects of a cognitive modelling technique called NGOMSL (Natural GOMS Language) as the basis for this approach. GSE's behaviour tree notation, and NGOMSL's goal orientated format are integrated using a set of simple conversion rules defined in this study. Several well established design principles, believed to contribute to the eventual usability of a product, are then modelled in GSE. This thesis addresses the design of simple interfaces and the design of complex ubiquitous technology. The new GSE approach is used to model and predict usability problems in an extensive range of tasks from programming a VCR to making a video recording on a modern mobile phone. The validity of these findings is tested against actual user tests on the same tasks and devices to demonstrate the effectiveness of the GSE approach. Ultimately, the aim of the study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new cognitive and engineering based approach at predicting usability problems based on tangible representations of established design principles. This both fulfils the MCI research requirements for a 'total system approach' and establishes a new and novel approach to user interface and system design.

The aim of Human Computer Interaction or HCI is to both understand and improve the quality of the users' experience with the systems and technology they interact with. Recent HCI research requirements have stated a need for a unified predictive approach to system design that consolidates system engineering, cognitive modelling, and design principles into a single 'total system approach.' At present, few methods seek to integrate all three of these aspects into a single method and of those that do many are extensions to existing engineering techniques. This thesis, however proposes a new behaviour based approach designed to identify usability problems early in the design process before testing the system with actual users. In order to address the research requirements, this model uses a new design notation called Genetic Software Engineering (GSE) in conjunction with aspects of a cognitive modelling technique called NGOMSL (Natural GOMS Language) as the basis for this approach. GSE's behaviour tree notation, and NGOMSL's goal orientated format are integrated using a set of simple conversion rules defined in this study. Several well established design principles, believed to contribute to the eventual usability of a product, are then modelled in GSE. This thesis addresses the design of simple interfaces and the design of complex ubiquitous technology. The new GSE approach is used to model and predict usability problems in an extensive range of tasks from programming a VCR to making a video recording on a modern mobile phone. The validity of these findings is tested against actual user tests on the same tasks and devices to demonstrate the effectiveness of the GSE approach. Ultimately, the aim of the study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new cognitive and engineering based approach at predicting usability problems based on tangible representations of established design principles. This both fulfils the MCI research requirements for a 'total system approach' and establishes a new and novel approach to user interface and system design.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Information and Communication Technology
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Introduction : Depuis 2007, la vaccination contre les infections à papillomavirus humains (HPV) est recommandée en complément du dépistage du cancer du col utérin (CCU). Cependant, au vu de la faible couverture vaccinale en France, l’impact épidémiologique de la vaccination est discuté, ainsi que le choix de la population cible et les moyens déployés pour son adhésion à la recommandation. Cette thèse propose des données et des outils originaux pour l’évaluation et l’optimisation de l’impact de la vaccination HPV en France. Pour les aspects quantitatifs, une modélisation de la transmission de l’infection à HPV appuyée sur des données détaillées décrivant les partenariats sexuels dans la population générale est nécessaire. L’exploration du lien potentiel entre la participation au dépistage du CCU des femmes précaires et leur choix d’administrer le vaccin HPV à leurs filles, l’appréciation de l’acceptabilité de la vaccination à partir des réseaux sociaux, et l’évaluation médico-économique de la pertinence de l’extension de la vaccination aux hommes, sont déterminants pour parfaire le ciblage des populations à atteindre.Méthodes : Nous avons développé une plateforme de modélisation destinée à l'étude des contacts sexuels et de la dynamique de transmission des infections par les HPV à partir des données de l’enquête Contexte de la Sexualité en France. Grâce à des modèles de mélange de lois, nous avons identifié des classes latentes d’activité sexuelle, permettant de définir des profils à risque d’infections sexuellement transmissibles. Ensuite, nous avons interrogé les femmes consultant au sein du Centre de Prévention et d’Éducation pour la Santé de Lille, ayant au moins une fille éligible à la vaccination HPV, sur leurs attitudes vis-à-vis du dépistage du CCU et de la vaccination. Puis, nous avons analysé les opinions exprimées par les internautes sur le forum en ligne d’un site d’information en santé, concernant la sécurité, l’efficacité et la perception du vaccin HPV. Enfin, nous avons réalisé une revue systématique des études médico-économiques relatives à l’extension de la vaccination HPV aux hommes.Résultats : Les simulations sur la plateforme de modélisation ont permis de reproduire les données de prévalence des infections à HPV mais les résultats restent sensibles aux hypothèses sur les comportements sexuels qui présentent des incohérences entre les hommes et les femmes. Cinq classes latentes d’activité sexuelle ont été identifiées pour les hommes ainsi que pour les femmes. Le cluster correspondant au niveau d’activité sexuelle le plus élevé représente 3,3% chez les femmes et 4,8% chez les hommes. Par ailleurs, le statut vaccinal des filles ne diffère pas selon le profil de dépistage de leur mère. L’argument majoritairement rapporté par les mères pour justifier la non-vaccination de leurs filles concerne le manque d’information, surtout parmi celles qui ne se dépistent pas. De plus, les opinions négatives, exprimées sur le forum de discussion en ligne, sont passées de 28,6 % des avis exprimés en 2006 à 42,2 % en 2013. Les arguments avancés par les « anti-vaccinaux » concernent la sécurité du vaccin et la perception de la vaccination. Enfin, les modèles médico-économiques montrent que l’extension de la vaccination aux hommes est très rarement une stratégie coût-efficace. Néanmoins, la vaccination ciblée des homosexuels masculins semble être la stratégie optimale du point de vue éthique et médico-économique.Discussion : La plateforme de modélisation des contacts sexuels constitue le socle de l’évaluation de l’impact de la vaccination HPV. La surveillance des forums de discussion en ligne permet le monitoring de l’acceptabilité de la vaccination et le ciblage des actions d’information. L’optimisation de couverture vaccinale nécessite la mise en place d’un programme organisé de vaccination des jeunes filles. À défaut d’une implémentation en milieu scolaire, les centres de prévention offrent une alternative intéressante
Introduction: Since 2007, prophylactic vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) has been recommended in addition to cervical screening in French women. However, given the low vaccine coverage in France, the epidemiological impact of the vaccination is debated, as well as the choice of the target population and the means to ensure compliance with the recommendation. This doctoral thesis provides original data and tools for the evaluation and the improvement of the impact of HPV vaccination in France. For quantitative aspects, modelling HPV transmission based on the best data describing sexual partnerships in the general population is essential. The investigation of potential links between participation to cervical screening of deprived women and their choice of vaccinating their daughters, the appraisal of vaccine acceptability through social media and the cost-effectiveness evaluation of the relevance of extending the HPV vaccination program to include males are key elements to improve the focus on targeted populations.Methods: We developed a modelling platform to study the dynamics of HPV transmission, using data from Social Context of Sexuality, the latest national French sexual behavior study. Using finite mixture models, we identified latent classes of sexual activity to define profiles of partner acquisition with age, likely to have different risks of sexually transmitted infections. Then, we asked women attending the Centre for Preventive Medicine and Health Education of Lille, who had at least a daughter eligible for HPV vaccination, about their attitudes towards cervical screening and HPV vaccination. Next, we explored sentiments about HPV vaccine safety, efficacy and perceptions, spontaneously expressed by web users on the online discussion forum of a French-speaking health information website. Finally, we performed a systematic review of the cost-effectiveness studies about extending HPV vaccination to include males.Results: Simulations from the modelling platform reproduced HPV infection prevalence observed in France. Nevertheless, results were sensitive to assumptions about sexual behavior, with discrepancies between men and women. Five latent classes of sexual activity were identified in men and in women. The cluster describing the highest level of sexual behavior represents 3.3% in women and 4.8% in men. Besides, daughters’ vaccination profile did not differ with their mothers’ profile of participation to cervical screening. The main reason for not vaccinating their daughters reported by mothers was lack of information, especially for those non-compliant with cervical screening recommendations. Moreover, negative sentiments, reported by the health website forum, evolved from 28.6% of total opinions in 2006 to 42.2% in 2013. The arguments expressed by “anti-vaccine” postings involved most often vaccine safety and negative vaccine perceptions. Finally, cost-effectiveness analyses show that extending the HPV vaccination program to include males is rarely found to be a cost-effective strategy. Nevertheless, the targeted vaccination of men having sex with men seems to be the best strategy from ethical and cost-effectiveness points of view.Discussion: The modelling platform of sexual contacts represents the basis of the evaluation of HPV vaccination impact. The surveillance of online forums enables the monitoring of vaccine acceptability and hence the targeting of preventive messages. Improving the HPV vaccine coverage requires offering girls and young women an organized vaccination program. In the lack of a school-based vaccination program, Centres for Preventive Medicine and Health Education offer an interesting alternative

L'acquisition et la modélisation de connaissances ont été abordés jusqu'à présent selon deux approches principales : les êtres humains (experts) à l'aide des méthodologies de l'Ingénierie des Connaissances et le Knowledge Management, et les données à l'aide des techniques relevant de la découverte de connaissances à partir du contenu de bases de données (fouille de données). Cette thèse porte sur la conception d'un processus d'apprentissage conjoint par l'être humain et la machine combinant une approche de modélisation des connaissances de type Ingénierie des Connaissances (TOM4D, Timed Observation Modelling for Diagnosis) et une approche d'apprentissage automatique fondée sur un processus de découverte de connaissances à partir de données datées (TOM4L, Timed Observation Mining for Learning). Ces deux approches étant fondées sur la Théorie des Observations Datées, les modèles produits sont représentés dans le même formalisme ce qui permet leur comparaison et leur combinaison. Le mémoire propose également une méthode d'abstraction, inspiée des travaux de Newell sur le "Knowledge Level'' et fondée sur le paradigme d'observation datée, qui a pour but de traiter le problème de la différence de niveau d'abstraction inhérent entre le discours d'un expert et les données mesurées sur un système par un processus d'abstractions successives. Les travaux présentés dans ce mémoire ayant été menés en collaboration avec le CSTB de Sophia Antipolis (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment), ils sont appliqués à la modélisation de l'activité humaine dans le cadre de l'aide aux personnes âgées maintenues à domicile
Knowledge acquisition has been traditionally approached from a primarily people-driven perspective, through Knowledge Engineering and Management, or from a primarily data-driven approach, through Knowledge Discovery in Databases, rather than from an integral standpoint. This thesis proposes then a human-machine learning approach that combines a Knowledge Engineering modelling approach called TOM4D (Timed Observation Modelling For Diagnosis) with a process of Knowledge Discovery in Databases based on an automatic data mining technique called TOM4L (Timed Observation Mining For Learning). The combination and comparison between models obtained through TOM4D and those ones obtained through TOM4L is possible, owing to that TOM4D and TOM4L are based on the Theory of Timed Observations and share the same representation formalism. Consequently, a learning process nourished with experts' knowledge and knowledge discovered in data is defined in the present work. In addition, this dissertation puts forward a theoretical framework of abstraction levels, in line with the mentioned theory and inspired by the Newell's Knowledge Level work, in order to reduce the broad gap of semantic content that exists between data, relative to an observed process, in a database and what can be inferred in a higher level; that is, in the experts' discursive level. Thus, the human-machine learning approach along with the notion of abstraction levels are then applied to the modelling of human behaviour in smart environments. In particular, the modelling of elderly people's behaviour at home in the GerHome Project of the CSTB (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment) of Sophia Antipolis, France

The requirement for affordable, secure and sustainable energy production is a pressing global challenge and the production of electricity with low carbon emissions is crucial. This usually entails large quantities of renewable energy generation, which is intermittent and often highly distributed throughout the electricity supply system. One of the proposed schemes to manage such generation is the smart grid, the transition to which forms the context for this research. The aim is to investigate the effect of certain psychological and social influences on the adoption of technology necessary to enable smart grids, in order to understand the implications for effective energy policy. In particular, the case of photovoltaic (PV) system adoption in the UK is studied. Empirical data detailing PV installations registered for the Feed in Tariff is analysed in order to understand rates of adoption and how they vary across both time and space. This analysis is combined with a review of policy intervention and literature from psychology to understand drivers for adoption among householders. The results from this study are then used to inform the design of an Agent Based Model of technology adoption within the smart grid context. The decision making of householders is modelled using an algorithm based on Social Cognitive Theory. The model is used to simulate different conditions and generate adoption scenarios in order to understand the potential effects of different parameters on adoption rates. In order to combine the analysis resulting from these methods, the multi-level perspective on transition in socio-technical systems is used to understand how a transition to a smart grid could be described and how adoption of PV in the UK under the Feed in Tariff incentive fits into such a transition. The results show that whilst economic incentive policies have had success in some areas adoption is also dependent on many non-financial parameters. Simulations show that the observability of adoption and the perceived inconvenience or urgency of adoption can have dramatic effects on rates of adoption, in some cases outweighing the rational economic effects of financial incentives. The implication for smart grid related policy is that non-financial factors should be taken into account as well as the more typical financial considerations in efforts to encourage adoption of necessary enabling technology by householders. The models developed could be used in further work to examine in detail adoption of other technologies such as smart home energy management systems and the interaction between adoption rates of multiple smart technologies.

La consommation énergétique dans le secteur bâtiment dépend de diverses facteurs parmi lesquels ses caractéristiques physique, ses équipements, l’environnement extérieur, etc… mais il ne faut pas oublier le comportement des habitants qui est déterminant pour la consommation énergétique globale. Or, la plupart des travaux et outils représentent les occupants par des profils d’occupation. Cette thèse s’intéresse à la représentation plus détaillée du comportement des occupants, en particulier les mécanismes cognitifs, réactifs et délibératifs. Le comportement dynamique des occupants est modélisé et co-simulé avec les aspects physiques et des éventuels systèmes de gestion énergétique. L’analyse de la consommation de différents équipements électroménagers met en évidence que le consommation énergétique est très dépendante des comportements des occupants. L’analyse des consommations et des actions des habitants permet d’élaborer un modèle du comportement des occupants impactant la consommation énergétique. Le modèle représente des mécanismes cognitifs, qui représente les causes qui motivent les actions, incluant des échange avec d’autres acteurs humains. Une approche à base d’agents logiciels a été développée. Outre les aspects techniques, une méthodologie de réglage des paramètres des modèles de comportement est proposée. Ces outils sont utilisés pour réaliser une co-simulation représentant la physique du bâtiment, le comportement réactif, c’est-à-dire sensible aux données physiques, et délibératif des habitants mais aussi un système de gestion énergétique qui peut ajuster directement la configuration du logement ou simplement conseiller ces occupants. L’impact de différents types de comportements, avec et sans gestionnaire énergétique est analysé. Ces travaux ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives dans la simulation bâtiment, dans la validation de gestionnaires énergétiques mais aussi dans la représentation des bâtiments dans les réseaux d’énergie dits intelligents, dans lesquels des signaux peuvent être envoyés aux utilisateurs finaux pour les inviter à moduler leur consommation
Energy consumption in buildings is affected by various factors including its physical characteristics, the appliances inside, and the outdoor environment, etc. However, inhabitants’ behaviour that determines the global energy consumption must not be forgotten. In most of the previous works and simulation tools, human behaviour is modelled as occupancy profiles. In this thesis the focus is more on detailed behaviour representation, particularly the cognitive, reactive, and deliberative mechanisms. The inhabitants’ dynamic behaviour is modelled and co-simulated together with the physical aspects of a building and an energy management system. The analysis of different household appliances has revealed that energy consumption patterns are highly associated with inhabitants’ behaviours. Data analysis of inhabitants’ actions and appliances’ consumptions is used to derive a model of inhabitants’ behaviour that impacts the energy consumption. This model represents the cognitive mechanisms that provide causes that motivate the actions, including the communication with other inhabitants. An approach based on multi-agent systems is developed along with a methodology for parameter tuning in the proposed behaviour model. These tools are used to co-simulate, not only the physical characteristics of the building, the reactive behaviour that is sensitive to physical data, and deliberative behaviour of the inhabitants, but also the building energy management system. The energy management system allows the direct adjustment of the building parameters or simply giving advice to the inhabitants. The impact of different types of inhabitants’ behaviours, with and without the inclusion of an energy management system is analyzed. This work opens new perspectives not only in the building simulation and in the validation of energy management systems but also in the representation of buildings in the smart grid where signals can be sent to end users advising them to modulate their consumption

As Web searching becomes more prolific for information access worldwide, we need to better understand users’ Web searching behaviour and develop better models of their interaction with Web search systems. Web search modelling is a significant and important area of Web research. Searching on the Web is an integral element of information behaviour and human–computer interaction. Web searching includes multitasking processes, the allocation of cognitive resources among several tasks, and shifts in cognitive, problem and knowledge states. In addition to multitasking, cognitive coordination and cognitive shifts are also important, but are under-explored aspects of Web searching. During the Web searching process, beyond physical actions, users experience various cognitive activities. Interactive Web searching involves many users’ cognitive shifts at different information behaviour levels. Cognitive coordination allows users to trade off the dependences among multiple information tasks and the resources available. Much research has been conducted into Web searching. However, few studies have modelled the nature of and relationship between multitasking, cognitive coordination and cognitive shifts in the Web search context. Modelling how Web users interact with Web search systems is vital for the development of more effective Web IR systems. This study aims to model the relationship between multitasking, cognitive coordination and cognitive shifts during Web searching. A preliminary theoretical model is presented based on previous studies. The research is designed to validate the preliminary model. Forty-two study participants were involved in the empirical study. A combination of data collection instruments, including pre- and post-questionnaires, think-aloud protocols, search logs, observations and interviews were employed to obtain users’ comprehensive data during Web search interactions. Based on the grounded theory approach, qualitative analysis methods including content analysis and verbal protocol analysis were used to analyse the data. The findings were inferred through an analysis of questionnaires, a transcription of think-aloud protocols, the Web search logs, and notes on observations and interviews. Five key findings emerged. (1) Multitasking during Web searching was demonstrated as a two-dimensional behaviour. The first dimension was represented as multiple information problems searching by task switching. Users’ Web searching behaviour was a process of multiple tasks switching, that is, from searching on one information problem to searching another. The second dimension of multitasking behaviour was represented as an information problem searching within multiple Web search sessions. Users usually conducted Web searching on a complex information problem by submitting multiple queries, using several Web search systems and opening multiple windows/tabs. (2) Cognitive shifts were the brain’s internal response to external stimuli. Cognitive shifts were found as an essential element of searching interactions and users’ Web searching behaviour. The study revealed two kinds of cognitive shifts. The first kind, the holistic shift, included users’ perception on the information problem and overall information evaluation before and after Web searching. The second kind, the state shift, reflected users’ changes in focus between the different cognitive states during the course of Web searching. Cognitive states included users’ focus on the states of topic, strategy, evaluation, view and overview. (3) Three levels of cognitive coordination behaviour were identified: the information task coordination level, the coordination mechanism level, and the strategy coordination level. The three levels of cognitive coordination behaviour interplayed to support multiple information tasks switching. (4) An important relationship existed between multitasking, cognitive coordination and cognitive shifts during Web searching. Cognitive coordination as a management mechanism bound together other cognitive processes, including multitasking and cognitive shifts, in order to move through users’ Web searching process. (5) Web search interaction was shown to be a multitasking process which included information problems ordering, task switching and task and mental coordinating; also, at a deeper level, cognitive shifts took place. Cognitive coordination was the hinge behaviour linking multitasking and cognitive shifts. Without cognitive coordination, neither multitasking Web searching behaviour nor the complicated mental process of cognitive shifting could occur. The preliminary model was revisited with these empirical findings. A revised theoretical model (MCC Model) was built to illustrate the relationship between multitasking, cognitive coordination and cognitive shifts during Web searching. Implications and limitations of the study are also discussed, along with future research work.

The Hybrid Warfare phenomena, which is the subject of the current research, has been framed by the work of Professor Agostino Bruzzone (University of Genoa) and Professor Erdal Cayirci (University of Stavanger), that in June 2016 created in order to inquiry the subject a dedicated Exploratory Team, which was endorsed by NATO Modelling & Simulation Group (a panel of the NATO Science & Technology organization) and established with the participation as well of the author. The author brought his personal contribution within the ET43 by introducing meaningful insights coming from the lecture of “Fight by the minutes: Time and the Art of War (1994)”, written by Lieutenant Colonel US Army (Rtd.) Robert Leonhard; in such work, Leonhard extensively developed the concept that “Time”, rather than geometry of the battlefield and/or firepower, is the critical factor to tackle in military operations and by extension in Hybrid Warfare. The critical reflection about the time - both in its quantitative and qualitative dimension - in a hybrid confrontation it is addressed and studied inside SIMCJOH, a software built around challenges that imposes literally to “Fight by the minutes”, echoing the core concept expressed in the eponymous work. Hybrid Warfare – which, by definition and purpose, aims to keep the military commitment of both aggressor and defender at the lowest - can gain enormous profit by employing a wide variety of non-military tools, turning them into a weapon, as in the case of the phenomena of “weaponization of mass migrations”, as it is examined in the “Dies Irae” simulation architecture. Currently, since migration it is a very sensitive and divisive issue among the public opinions of many European countries, cynically leveraging on a humanitarian emergency caused by an exogenous, inducted migration, could result in a high level of political and social destabilization, which indeed favours the concurrent actions carried on by other hybrid tools. Other kind of disruption however, are already available in the arsenal of Hybrid Warfare, such cyber threats, information campaigns lead by troll factories for the diffusion of fake/altered news, etc. From this perspective the author examines how the TREX (Threat network simulation for REactive eXperience) simulator is able to offer insights about a hybrid scenario characterized by an intense level of social disruption, brought by cyber-attacks and systemic faking of news. Furthermore, the rising discipline of “Strategic Engineering”, as envisaged by Professor Agostino Bruzzone, when matched with the operational requirements to fulfil in order to counter Hybrid Threats, it brings another innovative, as much as powerful tool, into the professional luggage of the military and the civilian employed in Defence and Homeland security sectors. Hybrid is not the New War. What is new is brought by globalization paired with the transition to the information age and rising geopolitical tensions, which have put new emphasis on hybrid hostilities that manifest themselves in a contemporary way. Hybrid Warfare is a deliberate choice of an aggressor. While militarily weak nations can resort to it in order to re-balance the odds, instead military strong nations appreciate its inherent effectiveness coupled with the denial of direct responsibility, thus circumventing the rules of the International Community (IC). In order to be successful, Hybrid Warfare should consist of a highly coordinated, sapient mix of diverse and dynamic combination of regular forces, irregular forces (even criminal elements), cyber disruption etc. all in order to achieve effects across the entire DIMEFIL/PMESII_PT spectrum. However, the owner of the strategy, i.e. the aggressor, by keeping the threshold of impunity as high as possible and decreasing the willingness of the defender, can maintain his Hybrid Warfare at a diplomatically feasible level; so the model of the capacity, willingness and threshold, as proposed by Cayirci, Bruzzone and Gunneriusson (2016), remains critical to comprehend Hybrid Warfare. Its dynamicity is able to capture the evanescent, blurring line between Hybrid Warfare and Conventional Warfare. In such contest time is the critical factor: this because it is hard to foreseen for the aggressor how long he can keep up with such strategy without risking either the retaliation from the International Community or the depletion of resources across its own DIMEFIL/PMESII_PT spectrum. Similar discourse affects the defender: if he isn’t able to cope with Hybrid Threats (i.e. taking no action), time works against him; if he is, he can start to develop counter narrative and address physical countermeasures. However, this can lead, in the medium long period, to an unforeseen (both for the attacker and the defender) escalation into a large, conventional, armed conflict. The performance of operations that required more than kinetic effects drove the development of DIMEFIL/PMESII_PT models and in turn this drive the development of Human Social Culture Behavior Modelling (HCSB), which should stand at the core of the Hybrid Warfare modelling and simulation efforts. Multi Layers models are fundamental to evaluate Strategies and Support Decisions: currently there are favourable conditions to implement models of Hybrid Warfare, such as Dies Irae, SIMCJOH and TREX, in order to further develop tools and war-games for studying new tactics, execute collective training and to support decisions making and analysis planning. The proposed approach is based on the idea to create a mosaic made by HLA interoperable simulators able to be combined as tiles to cover an extensive part of the Hybrid Warfare, giving the users an interactive and intuitive environment based on the “Modelling interoperable Simulation and Serious Game” (MS2G) approach. From this point of view, the impressive capabilities achieved by IA-CGF in human behavior modeling to support population simulation as well as their native HLA structure, suggests to adopt them as core engine in this application field. However, it necessary to highlight that, when modelling DIMEFIL/PMESII_PT domains, the researcher has to be aware of the bias introduced by the fact that especially Political and Social “science” are accompanied and built around value judgement. From this perspective, the models proposed by Cayirci, Bruzzone, Guinnarson (2016) and by Balaban & Mileniczek (2018) are indeed a courageous tentative to import, into the domain of particularly poorly understood phenomena (social, politics, and to a lesser degree economics - Hartley, 2016), the mathematical and statistical instruments and the methodologies employed by the pure, hard sciences. Nevertheless, just using the instruments and the methodology of the hard sciences it is not enough to obtain the objectivity, and is such aspect the representations of Hybrid Warfare mechanics could meet their limit: this is posed by the fact that they use, as input for the equations that represents Hybrid Warfare, not physical data observed during a scientific experiment, but rather observation of the reality that assumes implicitly and explicitly a value judgment, which could lead to a biased output. Such value judgement it is subjective, and not objective like the mathematical and physical sciences; when this is not well understood and managed by the academic and the researcher, it can introduce distortions - which are unacceptable for the purpose of the Science - which could be used as well to enforce a narrative mainstream that contains a so called “truth”, which lies inside the boundary of politics rather than Science. Those observations around subjectivity of social sciences vs objectivity of pure sciences, being nothing new, suggest however the need to examine the problem under a new perspective, less philosophical and more leaned toward the practical application. The suggestion that the author want make here is that the Verification and Validation process, in particular the methodology used by Professor Bruzzone in doing V&V for SIMCJOH (2016) and the one described in the Modelling & Simulation User Risk Methodology (MURM) developed by Pandolfini, Youngblood et all (2018), could be applied to evaluate if there is a bias and the extent of the it, or at least making clear the value judgment adopted in developing the DIMEFIL/PMESII_PT models. Such V&V research is however outside the scope of the present work, even though it is an offspring of it, and for such reason the author would like to make further inquiries on this particular subject in the future. Then, the theoretical discourse around Hybrid Warfare has been completed addressing the need to establish a new discipline, Strategic Engineering, very much necessary because of the current a political and economic environment which allocates diminishing resources to Defense and Homeland Security (at least in Europe). However, Strategic Engineering can successfully address its challenges when coupled with the understanding and the management of the fourth dimension of military and hybrid operations, Time. For the reasons above, and as elaborated by Leonhard and extensively discussed in the present work, addressing the concern posed by Time dimension is necessary for the success of any military or Hybrid confrontation. The SIMCJOH project, examined under the above perspective, proved that the simulator has the ability to address the fourth dimension of military and non-military confrontation. In operations, Time is the most critical factor during execution, and this was successfully transferred inside the simulator; as such, SIMCJOH can be viewed as a training tool and as well a dynamic generator of events for the MEL/MIL execution during any exercise. In conclusion, SIMCJOH Project successfully faces new challenging aspects, allowed to study and develop new simulation models in order to support decision makers, Commanders and their Staff. Finally, the question posed by Leonhard in terms of recognition of the importance of time management of military operations - nowadays Hybrid Conflict - has not been answered yet; however, the author believes that Modelling and Simulation tools and techniques can represent the safe “tank” where innovative and advanced scientific solutions can be tested, exploiting the advantage of doing it in a synthetic environment.

Studien är en kvalitativ intervjustudie som genomfördes i samarbete med Scania CV AB. Syftet är att kartlägga hur man resonerar kring begreppet säkerhet i förhållande till Organizational Behavioral Management (OBM). Studien presenterar OBMs beteendeanalys ABC-modellen för att beskriva hur ett beteende kan aktiveras samt vilka konsekvenser det har. Den avser även att introducera DCOM och Beteendebaserad säkerhet (BBS) som kompletterande verktyg att arbeta med. Målgruppen i studien är truckförare på Chassi. Chassi är en avdelning på Scania där själva produktionen av lastbilar och bussar sker. Det övergripande problemet är att truck- och gångtrafik arbetar väldigt nära varandra, vilket resulterar i att avvikelser, tillbud och olyckor sker och utmaningen är att ta reda på varför. Det resulterade i tre frågeställningar: 1)Hur resonerar man kring säkert och osäkert beteende och säkerhet? 2) Varför gör man osäkra handlingar? 3) Är negativa konsekvenser för ett felaktigt beteende lösningen eller finns den någon annanstans? Resultatet visar att målgruppen har ett bra resonemang om säkerhet och man vill sträva efter en säker arbetsplats. Diskussionen handlar företrädelsevis om osäkert beteende och hur man kan eliminera det hellre än hur man kan förstärka ett säkerhet beteende. Studien visar att man som truckförare möter flertalet tydliga aktiverare, som triggar osäkra beteenden och att konsekvenserna för att försvaga dem är inte tillräckliga.

Die dreidimensionale Erfassung der Form und Lage eines beliebigen Objekts durch die flexiblen Methoden und Verfahren der Photogrammetrie spielt für ein breites Spektrum technisch-industrieller und naturwissenschaftlicher Einsatzgebiete eine große Rolle. Die Anwendungsmöglichkeiten reichen von Messaufgaben im Automobil-, Maschinen- und Schiffbau über die Erstellung komplexer 3D-Modelle in Architektur, Archäologie und Denkmalpflege bis hin zu Bewegungsanalysen in Bereichen der Strömungsmesstechnik, Ballistik oder Medizin. In der Nahbereichsphotogrammetrie werden dabei verschiedene optische 3D-Messsysteme verwendet. Neben flächenhaften Halbleiterkameras im Einzel- oder Mehrbildverband kommen aktive Triangulationsverfahren zur Oberflächenmessung mit z.B. strukturiertem Licht oder Laserscanner-Systeme zum Einsatz. 3D-Kameras auf der Basis von Photomischdetektoren oder vergleichbaren Prinzipien erzeugen durch die Anwendung von Modulationstechniken zusätzlich zu einem Grauwertbild simultan ein Entfernungsbild. Als Einzelbildsensoren liefern sie ohne die Notwendigkeit einer stereoskopischen Zuordnung räumlich aufgelöste Oberflächendaten in Videorate. In der 3D-Bewegungsanalyse ergeben sich bezüglich der Komplexität und des Rechenaufwands erhebliche Erleichterungen. 3D-Kameras verbinden die Handlichkeit einer Digitalkamera mit dem Potential der dreidimensionalen Datenakquisition etablierter Oberflächenmesssysteme. Sie stellen trotz der noch vergleichsweise geringen räumlichen Auflösung als monosensorielles System zur Echtzeit-Tiefenbildakquisition eine interessante Alternative für Aufgabenstellungen der 3D-Bewegungsanalyse dar. Der Einsatz einer 3D-Kamera als Messinstrument verlangt die Modellierung von Abweichungen zum idealen Abbildungsmodell; die Verarbeitung der erzeugten 3D-Kameradaten bedingt die zielgerichtete Adaption, Weiter- und Neuentwicklung von Verfahren der Computer Vision und Photogrammetrie. Am Beispiel der Untersuchung des zwischenmenschlichen Bewegungsverhaltens sind folglich die Entwicklung von Verfahren zur Sensorkalibrierung und zur 3D-Bewegungsanalyse die Schwerpunkte der Dissertation. Eine 3D-Kamera stellt aufgrund ihres inhärenten Designs und Messprinzips gleichzeitig Amplituden- und Entfernungsinformationen zur Verfügung, welche aus einem Messsignal rekonstruiert werden. Die simultane Einbeziehung aller 3D-Kamerainformationen in jeweils einen integrierten Ansatz ist eine logische Konsequenz und steht im Vordergrund der Verfahrensentwicklungen. Zum einen stützen sich die komplementären Eigenschaften der Beobachtungen durch die Herstellung des funktionalen Zusammenhangs der Messkanäle gegenseitig, wodurch Genauigkeits- und Zuverlässigkeitssteigerungen zu erwarten sind. Zum anderen gewährleistet das um eine Varianzkomponentenschätzung erweiterte stochastische Modell eine vollständige Ausnutzung des heterogenen Informationshaushalts. Die entwickelte integrierte Bündelblockausgleichung ermöglicht die Bestimmung der exakten 3D-Kamerageometrie sowie die Schätzung der distanzmessspezifischen Korrekturparameter zur Modellierung linearer, zyklischer und signalwegeffektbedingter Fehleranteile einer 3D-Kamerastreckenmessung. Die integrierte Kalibrierroutine gleicht in beiden Informationskanälen gemessene Größen gemeinsam, unter der automatischen Schätzung optimaler Beobachtungsgewichte, aus. Die Methode basiert auf dem flexiblen Prinzip einer Selbstkalibrierung und benötigt keine Objektrauminformation, wodurch insbesondere die aufwendige Ermittlung von Referenzstrecken übergeordneter Genauigkeit entfällt. Die durchgeführten Genauigkeitsuntersuchungen bestätigen die Richtigkeit der aufgestellten funktionalen Zusammenhänge, zeigen aber auch Schwächen aufgrund noch nicht parametrisierter distanzmessspezifischer Fehler. Die Adaptivität und die modulare Implementierung des entwickelten mathematischen Modells gewährleisten aber eine zukünftige Erweiterung. Die Qualität der 3D-Neupunktkoordinaten kann nach einer Kalibrierung mit 5 mm angegeben werden. Für die durch eine Vielzahl von meist simultan auftretenden Rauschquellen beeinflusste Tiefenbildtechnologie ist diese Genauigkeitsangabe sehr vielversprechend, vor allem im Hinblick auf die Entwicklung von auf korrigierten 3D-Kameradaten aufbauenden Auswertealgorithmen. 2,5D Least Squares Tracking (LST) ist eine im Rahmen der Dissertation entwickelte integrierte spatiale und temporale Zuordnungsmethode zur Auswertung von 3D-Kamerabildsequenzen. Der Algorithmus basiert auf der in der Photogrammetrie bekannten Bildzuordnung nach der Methode der kleinsten Quadrate und bildet kleine Oberflächensegmente konsekutiver 3D-Kameradatensätze aufeinander ab. Die Abbildungsvorschrift wurde, aufbauend auf einer 2D-Affintransformation, an die Datenstruktur einer 3D-Kamera angepasst. Die geschlossen formulierte Parametrisierung verknüpft sowohl Grau- als auch Entfernungswerte in einem integrierten Modell. Neben den affinen Parametern zur Erfassung von Translations- und Rotationseffekten, modellieren die Maßstabs- sowie Neigungsparameter perspektivbedingte Größenänderungen des Bildausschnitts, verursacht durch Distanzänderungen in Aufnahmerichtung. Die Eingabedaten sind in einem Vorverarbeitungsschritt mit Hilfe der entwickelten Kalibrierroutine um ihre opto- und distanzmessspezifischen Fehler korrigiert sowie die gemessenen Schrägstrecken auf Horizontaldistanzen reduziert worden. 2,5D-LST liefert als integrierter Ansatz vollständige 3D-Verschiebungsvektoren. Weiterhin können die aus der Fehlerrechnung resultierenden Genauigkeits- und Zuverlässigkeitsangaben als Entscheidungskriterien für die Integration in einer anwendungsspezifischen Verarbeitungskette Verwendung finden. Die Validierung des Verfahrens zeigte, dass die Einführung komplementärer Informationen eine genauere und zuverlässigere Lösung des Korrespondenzproblems bringt, vor allem bei schwierigen Kontrastverhältnissen in einem Kanal. Die Genauigkeit der direkt mit den Distanzkorrekturtermen verknüpften Maßstabs- und Neigungsparameter verbesserte sich deutlich. Darüber hinaus brachte die Erweiterung des geometrischen Modells insbesondere bei der Zuordnung natürlicher, nicht gänzlich ebener Oberflächensegmente signifikante Vorteile. Die entwickelte flächenbasierte Methode zur Objektzuordnung und Objektverfolgung arbeitet auf der Grundlage berührungslos aufgenommener 3D-Kameradaten. Sie ist somit besonders für Aufgabenstellungen der 3D-Bewegungsanalyse geeignet, die den Mehraufwand einer multiokularen Experimentalanordnung und die Notwendigkeit einer Objektsignalisierung mit Zielmarken vermeiden möchten. Das Potential des 3D-Kamerazuordnungsansatzes wurde an zwei Anwendungsszenarien der menschlichen Verhaltensforschung demonstriert. 2,5D-LST kam zur Bestimmung der interpersonalen Distanz und Körperorientierung im erziehungswissenschaftlichen Untersuchungsgebiet der Konfliktregulation befreundeter Kindespaare ebenso zum Einsatz wie zur Markierung und anschließenden Klassifizierung von Bewegungseinheiten sprachbegleitender Handgesten. Die Implementierung von 2,5D-LST in die vorgeschlagenen Verfahren ermöglichte eine automatische, effektive, objektive sowie zeitlich und räumlich hochaufgelöste Erhebung und Auswertung verhaltensrelevanter Daten. Die vorliegende Dissertation schlägt die Verwendung einer neuartigen 3D-Tiefenbildkamera zur Erhebung menschlicher Verhaltensdaten vor. Sie präsentiert sowohl ein zur Datenaufbereitung entwickeltes Kalibrierwerkzeug als auch eine Methode zur berührungslosen Bestimmung dichter 3D-Bewegungsvektorfelder. Die Arbeit zeigt, dass die Methoden der Photogrammetrie auch für bewegungsanalytische Aufgabenstellungen auf dem bisher noch wenig erschlossenen Gebiet der Verhaltensforschung wertvolle Ergebnisse liefern können. Damit leistet sie einen Beitrag für die derzeitigen Bestrebungen in der automatisierten videographischen Erhebung von Körperbewegungen in dyadischen Interaktionen
The three-dimensional documentation of the form and location of any type of object using flexible photogrammetric methods and procedures plays a key role in a wide range of technical-industrial and scientific areas of application. Potential applications include measurement tasks in the automotive, machine building and ship building sectors, the compilation of complex 3D models in the fields of architecture, archaeology and monumental preservation and motion analyses in the fields of flow measurement technology, ballistics and medicine. In the case of close-range photogrammetry a variety of optical 3D measurement systems are used. Area sensor cameras arranged in single or multi-image configurations are used besides active triangulation procedures for surface measurement (e.g. using structured light or laser scanner systems). The use of modulation techniques enables 3D cameras based on photomix detectors or similar principles to simultaneously produce both a grey value image and a range image. Functioning as single image sensors, they deliver spatially resolved surface data at video rate without the need for stereoscopic image matching. In the case of 3D motion analyses in particular, this leads to considerable reductions in complexity and computing time. 3D cameras combine the practicality of a digital camera with the 3D data acquisition potential of conventional surface measurement systems. Despite the relatively low spatial resolution currently achievable, as a monosensory real-time depth image acquisition system they represent an interesting alternative in the field of 3D motion analysis. The use of 3D cameras as measuring instruments requires the modelling of deviations from the ideal projection model, and indeed the processing of the 3D camera data generated requires the targeted adaptation, development and further development of procedures in the fields of computer graphics and photogrammetry. This Ph.D. thesis therefore focuses on the development of methods of sensor calibration and 3D motion analysis in the context of investigations into inter-human motion behaviour. As a result of its intrinsic design and measurement principle, a 3D camera simultaneously provides amplitude and range data reconstructed from a measurement signal. The simultaneous integration of all data obtained using a 3D camera into an integrated approach is a logical consequence and represents the focus of current procedural development. On the one hand, the complementary characteristics of the observations made support each other due to the creation of a functional context for the measurement channels, with is to be expected to lead to increases in accuracy and reliability. On the other, the expansion of the stochastic model to include variance component estimation ensures that the heterogeneous information pool is fully exploited. The integrated bundle adjustment developed facilitates the definition of precise 3D camera geometry and the estimation of range-measurement-specific correction parameters required for the modelling of the linear, cyclical and latency defectives of a distance measurement made using a 3D camera. The integrated calibration routine jointly adjusts appropriate dimensions across both information channels, and also automatically estimates optimum observation weights. The method is based on the same flexible principle used in self-calibration, does not require spatial object data and therefore foregoes the time-consuming determination of reference distances with superior accuracy. The accuracy analyses carried out confirm the correctness of the proposed functional contexts, but nevertheless exhibit weaknesses in the form of non-parameterized range-measurement-specific errors. This notwithstanding, the future expansion of the mathematical model developed is guaranteed due to its adaptivity and modular implementation. The accuracy of a new 3D point coordinate can be set at 5 mm further to calibration. In the case of depth imaging technology – which is influenced by a range of usually simultaneously occurring noise sources – this level of accuracy is very promising, especially in terms of the development of evaluation algorithms based on corrected 3D camera data. 2.5D Least Squares Tracking (LST) is an integrated spatial and temporal matching method developed within the framework of this Ph.D. thesis for the purpose of evaluating 3D camera image sequences. The algorithm is based on the least squares image matching method already established in photogrammetry, and maps small surface segments of consecutive 3D camera data sets on top of one another. The mapping rule has been adapted to the data structure of a 3D camera on the basis of a 2D affine transformation. The closed parameterization combines both grey values and range values in an integrated model. In addition to the affine parameters used to include translation and rotation effects, the scale and inclination parameters model perspective-related deviations caused by distance changes in the line of sight. A pre-processing phase sees the calibration routine developed used to correct optical and distance-related measurement specific errors in input data and measured slope distances reduced to horizontal distances. 2.5D LST is an integrated approach, and therefore delivers fully three-dimensional displacement vectors. In addition, the accuracy and reliability data generated by error calculation can be used as decision criteria for integration into an application-specific processing chain. Process validation showed that the integration of complementary data leads to a more accurate, reliable solution to the correspondence problem, especially in the case of difficult contrast ratios within a channel. The accuracy of scale and inclination parameters directly linked to distance correction terms improved dramatically. In addition, the expansion of the geometric model led to significant benefits, and in particular for the matching of natural, not entirely planar surface segments. The area-based object matching and object tracking method developed functions on the basis of 3D camera data gathered without object contact. It is therefore particularly suited to 3D motion analysis tasks in which the extra effort involved in multi-ocular experimental settings and the necessity of object signalling using target marks are to be avoided. The potential of the 3D camera matching approach has been demonstrated in two application scenarios in the field of research into human behaviour. As in the case of the use of 2.5D LST to mark and then classify hand gestures accompanying verbal communication, the implementation of 2.5D LST in the proposed procedures for the determination of interpersonal distance and body orientation within the framework of pedagogical research into conflict regulation between pairs of child-age friends facilitates the automatic, effective, objective and high-resolution (from both a temporal and spatial perspective) acquisition and evaluation of data with relevance to behaviour. This Ph.D. thesis proposes the use of a novel 3D range imaging camera to gather data on human behaviour, and presents both a calibration tool developed for data processing purposes and a method for the contact-free determination of dense 3D motion vector fields. It therefore makes a contribution to current efforts in the field of the automated videographic documentation of bodily motion within the framework of dyadic interaction, and shows that photogrammetric methods can also deliver valuable results within the framework of motion evaluation tasks in the as-yet relatively untapped field of behavioural research

L’amélioration continue de la performance énergétique des bâtiments a été accompagnée par un développement d’outils numériques de plus en plus performants et précis. Alors que la prise en compte des phénomènes liés aux bâtiments, aux systèmes et à la météorologie est bien maîtrisée, le comportement des occupants est modélisé de manière très simplifiée par des scénarii répétitifs et des lois déterministes. L’impact des occupants sur les consommations énergétiques dans les bâtiments performants est pourtant majeur, comme en témoigne les écarts récurrents entre les résultats prédits et mesurés. Le travail de thèse propose, par l’intermédiaire d’une plateforme multi-agents et de modèles stochastiques, une mise à jour de la prise en compte de la présence des occupants et de leurs comportements sur la gestion des ouvrants, des dispositifs d’occultation, de l’éclairage et de la température de consigne de chauffage. Le champ d’application de la plateforme concerne les bâtiments de bureaux et de logements, pour des opérations neuves et de rénovation. Les modèles de comportement des occupants sont idéalement issus de campagnes de mesures in situ, d’études de laboratoire ou d’enquêtes sociologiques. La plateforme proposée est alors co-simulée avec le logiciel EnergyPlus, afin d’étudier l’influence des modèles sur les performances énergétiques. Dans la perspective de garantie de performance énergétique, ce travail contribue à la mise à jour et à la fiabilisation des outils de prédiction
Continuous improvement of the building energy performance is associated with the development of increasingly efficient and accurate numerical tools. While the consideration of phenomena related to buildings, systems and weather is well mastered, occupants’ behaviours are modelled in a very simplified way by repetitive scenarios and deterministic laws. The impact of occupants on energy consumption in high-performance buildings is dominant, as evidenced by the recurring gaps between predicted and measured results. The thesis demonstrates, via a multi-agent platform and stochastic models, an update on the ability to model occupants’ presence, their behaviours on windows, occultation devices, artificial lighting and heating setpoint temperatures. The application of the platform applies to office and residential buildings, for new builds and refurbishments. Occupants’ behaviour models are ideally obtained from in situ surveys, laboratory studies or sociological works. The suggested platform is then co-simulated with the EnergyPlus software, to study the influence of the models on a buildings energy performance. In the perspective of energy performance guarantees, this work contributes to the updating and reliability of prediction tools

Con una popolazione di anziani in crescita, il numero di soggetti a rischio di patologia è in rapido aumento. Molti gruppi di ricerca stanno studiando soluzioni pervasive per monitorare continuamente e discretamente i soggetti fragili nelle loro case, riducendo i costi sanitari e supportando la diagnosi medica. Comportamenti anomali durante l'esecuzione di attività di vita quotidiana (ADL) o variazioni sulle tendenze comportamentali sono di grande importanza.
With a growing population of elderly people, the number of subjects at risk of pathology is rapidly increasing. Many research groups are studying pervasive solutions to continuously and unobtrusively monitor fragile subjects in their homes, reducing health-care costs and supporting the medical diagnosis. Anomalous behaviors while performing activities of daily living (ADLs) or variations on behavioral trends are of great importance. To measure ADLs a significant number of parameters need to be considering affecting the measurement such as sensors and environment characteristics or sensors disposition. To face the impossibility to study in the real context the best configuration of sensors able to minimize costs and maximize accuracy, simulation tools are being developed as powerful means. This thesis presents several contributions on this topic. In the following research work, a study of a measurement chain aimed to measure ADLs and represented by PIRs sensors and ML algorithm is conducted and a simulation tool in form of Web Application has been developed to generate datasets and to simulate how the measurement chain reacts varying the configuration of the sensors. Starting from eWare project results, the simulation tool has been thought to provide support for technicians, developers and installers being able to speed up analysis and monitoring times, to allow rapid identification of changes in behavioral trends, to guarantee system performance monitoring and to study the best configuration of the sensors network for a given environment. The UNIVPM Home Care Web App offers the chance to create ad hoc datasets related to ADLs and to conduct analysis thanks to statistical algorithms applied on data. To measure ADLs, machine learning algorithms have been implemented in the tool. Five different tasks have been identified. To test the validity of the developed instrument six case studies divided into two categories have been considered. To the first category belong those studies related to: 1) discover the best configuration of the sensors keeping environmental characteristics and user behavior as constants; 2) define the most performant ML algorithms. The second category aims to proof the stability of the algorithm implemented and its collapse condition by varying user habits. Noise perturbation on data has been applied to all case studies. Results show the validity of the generated datasets. By maximizing the sensors network is it possible to minimize the ML error to 0.8%. Due to cost is a key factor in this scenario, the fourth case studied considered has shown that minimizing the configuration of the sensors it is possible to reduce drastically the cost with a more than reasonable value for the ML error around 11.8%. Results in ADLs measurement can be considered more than satisfactory.

La conduite d’un véhicule industriel est une activité professionnelle complexe qui s’exerce dans un environnement dynamique en constante évolution. Elle nécessite un apprentissage spécifique et se situe dans un cadre réglementaire strict, qui relève aussi bien du code du travail que de la réglementation routière. A ces caractéristiques s’ajoutent de fortes contraintes spatio-temporelles qui imposent aux conducteurs le recours à des stratégies opératoires pour répondre à l’objectif principal de leur activité : le respect des délais de livraison dans des conditions optimales de sécurité, de sûreté et de productivité.Cette thèse traite de l'apport de la psychologie cognitive à la conception de systèmes d'assistance à la conduite de véhicules industriels. Les travaux sont destinés à intégrer, dès la conception des nouveaux systèmes, les contraintes du fonctionnement cognitif humain en situation réelle, ainsi que les besoins et attentes des conducteurs, afin que leur soient proposées des solutions technologiques adaptées et utilisables.La partie appliquée illustre deux dimensions majeures de l'activité de conduite d'un camion : la productivité, au travers de la problématique de l'assistance à l'éco-conduite (projet Conduite Economique Assistée, ADEME- RENAULT TRUCKS) ; la sécurité, au travers de la problématique de l'assistance à la détection et à la protection des usagers vulnérables de la route (projet VIVRE2, ANR-PREDIT05-LUTB).D’un point de vue scientifique, la thèse aboutit à la proposition d’un modèle du fonctionnement humain dans les activités finalisées, complété par un modèle adapté à l’activité de conduite d’un véhicule industriel. Les analyses effectuées en situations réelles enrichissent les connaissances, d’une part, sur les stratégies de conduite appliquées à la conduite rationnelle d’un poids lourd en environnement extra-urbain, et, d’autre part, sur les composantes de l’activité des conducteurs qui effectuent des livraisons en milieu urbain. De plus, les travaux effectués dans le cadre du projet VIVRE2 ont permis de préciser les représentations et les comportements à risque des usagers vulnérables vis-à-vis des camions en ville.D’un point de vue applicatif et ergonomique, les travaux sur simulateur dynamique de conduite ont permis l’évaluation d’une interface homme-machine innovante qui pourrait être adaptée à l’éco-conduite, ainsi que la proposition et l’évaluation de systèmes d’assistance pour garantir la sécurité des usagers vulnérables lors des manœuvres à basse vitesse en milieu urbain
Driving a truck is a complex professional activity that takes place in a dynamic and constant changing environment. It needs a specific learning and it is set in a strict regulated framework including French labour code (Code du travail) as road regulation. Strong spatio-temporal pressure should be added to those characteristics. These constraints entail to drivers the use of operative strategies to achieve the main objective of their activity: respect of delivery time in optimal conditions of safety, security and productivity.This thesis deals with the contribution of cognitive psychology to the design of driving assistance systems for trucks. Works are intended to integrate, from the design of new systems, the demands of human cognitive functioning in real situation and the needs and expectations of drivers so that adapted and usable technological solutions could be proposed to them.Applied part shows two major dimensions of truck driving activity: productivity through the issue of the eco-driving assistance (“Conduite Economique Assistée, ADEME- RENAULT TRUCKS” project) and safety through the issue of the assistance to detection and protection of vulnerable road users (“VIVRE2, ANR-PREDIT05-LUTB” project).From a scientific point of view, the thesis ends with a proposal of a model of human functioning in finalized activities, of which is added an adapted model of the truck driving activity. The analysis performed in real environment enhance knowledge, on the one hand, on the applied driving strategies to the eco-driving of a truck in extra-urban environment and, on the other hand, on the components of the activity of drivers doing deliveries in urban environment. Moreover, works performed in VIVRE2 project allowed to specify representations and risky behaviours of vulnerable users with relation to trucks in town.From an applicative and ergonomic point of view, works on driving dynamic simulator allowed the evaluation of an innovative man-machine interface which could be adapted to eco-driving and the proposal as well as the evaluation of assistance systems to guarantee safety of vulnerable users during low speed manoeuvres in urban environment

La sicurezza degli spazi architettonici in emergenza implica una corretta gestione del processo di evacuazione. L’attuale approccio alla progettazione è influenzato da determinismo e schematicità: si suppone che conformazione di spazi e facilities (sistemi di wayfinding) sia di per sè in grado di plasmare il comportamento umano. Il progettista spesso adotta metodi semplificati (da manuali e norme) che considerano l’evacuazione un evento fluidodinamico con scelte umane rigidamente codificate. La letteratura dimostra però come i rapporti uomo-ambiente rendano vane le soluzioni comunemente adottate. Inoltre, stessi problemi sono riscontrati a grande (spazi urbani) e piccola scale (singoli edifici). Lo studio propone un nuovo approccio: il behavioural design (BD) intende progettare spazio e facilities basandosi sul reale comportamento umano. Le fasi principali sono perciò comprensione del comportamento umano con prove sperimentali, sviluppo e validazione di simulatori di evacuazione; analisi del processo per individuarne le criticità; proposta di soluzioni e valutazione dell’impatto tramite simulatore o prove reali. La metodologia BD è applicata a 2 casi riguardanti scenari esistenti complessi. Cardine è minimizzare gli interventi grazie alla localizzazione dei punti critici del processo e alla progettazione di nuovi componenti edilizi. Il primo caso ha visto lo sviluppo di un modello per la simulazione dell’evacuazione post-sisma su scala urbana. Il modello può essere usato per stimare il rischio includendo il fattore umano, valutare l’efficacia di interventi su edifici ed asseto urbano, e di procedure di emergenza. Il secondo caso sviluppa nuovi sistemi di wayfinding in edifici storici (teatri). Essi sono progettati per interagire efficacemente con le persone, guidandole attraverso le corrette vie di fuga, e senza apportare sostanziali modifiche al layout architettonico. Il lavoro è stato svolto anche in coordinazione con il cluster TAV-progetto SHELL O.R.4.4.
Occupants' safety in architectural spaces during an emergency is essentially connected to the evacuation process. Current strategies are influenced by a schematic and deterministic approach: it is supposed that building layout and wayfinding systems can directly induce individuals’ behaviors. Interventions on buildings could be enough for reducing people risk, because occupants would surely behave in “the correct way” (e.g.: using right paths). This approach seems to exclude behavioral aspects: experiments demonstrate enormous differences between theoretical and real behaviors in evacuation. Same problems are noticed at both small (building) and wide (urban) scale. Hence, this study focuses on a behavioral point of view and defines a “behavioral design” (BD) approach for increasing people’s safety in architectural spaces. BD is aimed at adapting architectural spaces depending on human behaviors! Hence, method phases include: understanding behaviors in emergency through experiments/real world events; defining and validating evacuation simulation model; analyzing emergency processes through simulator; proposing design solutions based on retrieved critical behaviors and verifying their impact by simulator or drills. The BD method effectiveness is shown by 2 cases. Firstly, an earthquake pedestrians’ evacuation simulator is developed. The model is able to represent man-environment interferences in damaged scenarios and can be used for evaluating vulnerability-reduction interventions on buildings, urban planning and rescuers’ management strategies. The second case concerns wayfinding systems definition in building heritage (theater). Systems are defined so as to address correct evacuation path choices, by reducing overall risks with no architectural modifications. This issue is considerably significant in these buildings because of preservation principles and minimum intervention criterion. This work was developed in accordance with “TAV-progetto SHELL-O.R.4.4” activities.

Predicting future users’ behaviour and their activities in a building is a cardinal and highly complex task that designers have to face during the design process. Even though architects and their clients have at their disposal several computational tools which can help them to predict and evaluate many aspects of building performance such as cost, energy consumption, and structural integrity, they have no means to predict and evaluate how well the proposed design will perform from the users’ point of view. Simulative approaches are gradually overcoming this shortcoming but, at present, they are limited to the representation of specific occurrences and behavioural performance aspects -such as emergency egress and crowd behaviour- while more extensive and comprehensive representations of human behaviour in built environments, able to simulate everyday life and activities in buildings, are still missing. Capitalizing on current developments in the video game industry, this research -partially developed at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and at Berkeley University of California- aims at establishing a new approach to human behaviour simulation in built environments, based on a clear, reliable and precise formalization of the use processes as specific structures of active entities called Events. Their role is to comprise knowledge about the building users, the activities they perform and the spaces where those specific activities are performed. Equipped with AI engines, events control and coordinate the actors’ behaviour during the simulation, providing a coherent representation of their interaction, cooperation and collaboration. The proposed model allows designers to test and evaluate the impact of their decisions on future users’ life and activities in the design process, when it is still possible to intervene to improve the quality of the final product, to solve critical issues and to reduce time and costs. To test its reliability, the model has been applied to simulate the functioning of a hospital nursing ward, both in routine and emergency circumstances.

The focus of the present work is natural human like grasping, for realistic performance simulations in digital human modelling (DHM) environment. The performance simulation for grasping in DHM is typically done through high level commands to the digital human models (DHMs). This calls for a natural and unambiguous scheme to describe a grasp which would implicitly accommodate variations due to the hand form, object form and hand kinematics. A novel relational description scheme is developed towards this purpose. The grasp is modelled as a spatio-temporal relationship between the patches (a closed region on the surface) in the hand and the object. The task dependency of the grasp affects only the choice of the relevant patches. Thus, the present scheme of grasp description enables a human like grasp description possible. Grasping can be simulated either in an interactive command mode as discussed above or in an autonomous mode. In the autonomous mode the patches have to be computed. It is done using a psychological concept, of affordance. This scheme is employed to select a tool from a set of tools. Various types of grasps a user may adopt while grasping a spanner for manipulating a nut is simulated. Grasping of objects by human evolves through distinct naturally occurring phases, such as re-oreintation, transport and preshape. Hand is taken to the object ballpark using a novel concept of virtual object. Before contact establishment hand achieves the shape similar to the global shape of the object, called preshaping. Various hand preshape strategies are simulating using an optimization scheme. Since the focus of the present work is human like grasping, the mechanism which drives the DHMs should also be anatomically pertinent. A methodology is developed wherein the hand-object contact establishment is done based on the anatomical observation of logarithmic spiral pattern during finger flexion. The effect of slip in presence of friction has been studied for 2D and 3D object grasping endeavours and a computational generation of the slip locus is done. The in-grasp slip studies are also done which simulates the finger and object response to slip. It is desirable that the grasping performance simulations be validated for diverse hands that people have. In the absence of an available database of articulated bio-fidelic digital hands, this work develops a semi-automatic methodology for developing subject specific hand models from a single pose 3D laser scan of the subject's hand. The methodology is based on the clinical evidence that creases and joint locations on human hand are strongly correlated. The hand scan is segmented into palm, wrist and phalanges, both manually and computationally. The computational segmentation is based on the crease markings in the hand scan, which is identified by explicitly painting them using a mesh processing software by the user. Joint locations are computed on this segmented hand. A 24 dof kinematic structure is automatically embedded into the hand scan. The joint axes are computed using a novel palm plane normal concept. The computed joint axes are rectified using the convergence, and intra-finger constraints. The methodology is significantly tolerant to the noise in the scan and the pose of the hand. With the proposed methodology articulated, realistic, custom hand models can be generated. Thus, the reported work presents a geometric framework for comprehensive simulation of grasping performance in a DHM environment.

The focus of the present work is natural human like grasping, for realistic performance simulations in digital human modelling (DHM) environment. The performance simulation for grasping in DHM is typically done through high level commands to the digital human models (DHMs). This calls for a natural and unambiguous scheme to describe a grasp which would implicitly accommodate variations due to the hand form, object form and hand kinematics. A novel relational description scheme is developed towards this purpose. The grasp is modelled as a spatio-temporal relationship between the patches (a closed region on the surface) in the hand and the object. The task dependency of the grasp affects only the choice of the relevant patches. Thus, the present scheme of grasp description enables a human like grasp description possible. Grasping can be simulated either in an interactive command mode as discussed above or in an autonomous mode. In the autonomous mode the patches have to be computed. It is done using a psychological concept, of affordance. This scheme is employed to select a tool from a set of tools. Various types of grasps a user may adopt while grasping a spanner for manipulating a nut is simulated. Grasping of objects by human evolves through distinct naturally occurring phases, such as re-oreintation, transport and preshape. Hand is taken to the object ballpark using a novel concept of virtual object. Before contact establishment hand achieves the shape similar to the global shape of the object, called preshaping. Various hand preshape strategies are simulating using an optimization scheme. Since the focus of the present work is human like grasping, the mechanism which drives the DHMs should also be anatomically pertinent. A methodology is developed wherein the hand-object contact establishment is done based on the anatomical observation of logarithmic spiral pattern during finger flexion. The effect of slip in presence of friction has been studied for 2D and 3D object grasping endeavours and a computational generation of the slip locus is done. The in-grasp slip studies are also done which simulates the finger and object response to slip. It is desirable that the grasping performance simulations be validated for diverse hands that people have. In the absence of an available database of articulated bio-fidelic digital hands, this work develops a semi-automatic methodology for developing subject specific hand models from a single pose 3D laser scan of the subject's hand. The methodology is based on the clinical evidence that creases and joint locations on human hand are strongly correlated. The hand scan is segmented into palm, wrist and phalanges, both manually and computationally. The computational segmentation is based on the crease markings in the hand scan, which is identified by explicitly painting them using a mesh processing software by the user. Joint locations are computed on this segmented hand. A 24 dof kinematic structure is automatically embedded into the hand scan. The joint axes are computed using a novel palm plane normal concept. The computed joint axes are rectified using the convergence, and intra-finger constraints. The methodology is significantly tolerant to the noise in the scan and the pose of the hand. With the proposed methodology articulated, realistic, custom hand models can be generated. Thus, the reported work presents a geometric framework for comprehensive simulation of grasping performance in a DHM environment.