Autonomous Sounding Observations
Balasuriya, A. Invited Talk at the 2nd International Conference on Oceanography of the Bay of Bengal, Colombo, Sri Lanka (January 2018) This talk presents the autonomous mobile marine meteorological system developed at Charles River Analytics called, Smart Weather Instruments (SWIMS). SWIMS samples the air-sea boundary layer and sends real-time data to remote stations on land. SWIMS […]
Automation Support using non-Invasive Measures of Operator Vocalization (ASIMOV)
Elkin-Frankston, S.1, Leather, C.1, Bracken, B.1, and van Mersbergen, M.2 To be presented at the 11th International Conference on Voice Physiology and Biomechanics (ICVPB 2018), East Lansing, MI (July 2018). Heightened states of arousal can be investigated using electroglottography (EGG) contact quotient, as well as other measures of vocalization, such as surface laryngeal electromyography (sEMG), […]
Strengthening Health and Improving Emotional Defenses (SHIELD)
Elkin-Frankston, S., Wollocko, A., and Niehaus, J. In: Schmorrow D., Fidopiastis C. (eds) Augmented Cognition: Users and Contexts. AC 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 10916. Springer, Cham (03 June 2018) Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, and meditation can be used to gain more control of how individuals respond to stressful situations. While these techniques are becoming […]
Using Perspective to Reduce Stimulus Response in Virtual Reality
Flowers, B1., Tatoian, R2., Katenka, N2., and Herve2, J. 2018 IEEE Games, Entertainment, Media Conference (GEM) (August 2018). The method used to immerse a participant within Virtual Reality has an impact on the way in which the participant physiologically responds to environmental stimuli. Given a situation where a participant is expected to express a negative or […]
Using Multi-Sensor Voting for Resilience in VR Biofeedback Games
Flowers, B1., Tatoian, R2., Witkowski, A2., Katenka, N2., and Herve2, J. 2018 IEEE Games, Entertainment, Media Conference (GEM) (August 2018). Biofeedback games are often developed to teach self-management skills to children. Unfortunately, the underlying system for many of these games are designed for laboratory environments and are not built to accommodate sensor movement and noise […]
Adapting Autonomous Ocean Vehicle Software Systems to Changing Environments
Fry, G., Pfeffer, A., Lu, K., Wu, C., Marotta, S., and Reposa, M. To be presented at OCEANS 2018 Conference and Expedition, Charleston, SC (October 2018). Software systems that can adapt to new requirements not only survive longer but also save overhead otherwise incurred from manually re-writing the software. Most software systems do not have […]
Matching Requirements to Means using Meaning
Hookway, S., Gorman, J., and Rosenberg, B. In Ground/Air Multisensor Interoperability, Integration, and Networking for Persistent ISR IX (Vol. 10635, p. 1063513), International Society for Optics and Photonics (May 2018). The ability to collect an ever-increasing amount of information is outpacing analysts’ ability to interpret and communicate that information in a timely manner. The Army Research Laboratory’s […]
Development of Virtual Simulations for Medical Team Training: An Evaluation of Key Features
Howe, J.1, Puthumana, J.1, Hoffman, D.1, Kowalski, R.1, Weldon, D.1, Miller, K.1, Weyhrauch, P.2, Niehaus, J.2, Bauchwitz2, B., McDermott, A.2, and Ratwani, R.1 Poster presentation for the International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care, Boston, MA (March 2018) Teamwork is an important factor in reducing medical errors and increasing clinical efficiency. Medical […]
Using Design to Connect Patients, Providers, and Researchers: A Cognitive Assessment and Monitoring Platform for Integrative Research (CAMPFIRE)
Jacobs, P., Anello, D., and Elkin-Frankston, S. Presented at the International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE), Orlando, FL (July 2018). There is a substantial need for an accessible suite of cognitive tests to assess and monitor signs of chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment during the treatment and survivorship phases of the cancer control continuum. […]
Increased Space Situational Awareness through Augmented Reality Enhanced Common Operating Pictures
Jenkins, M., Catto, G., and Bird, L. Presented at the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference (AMOS), Wailea, HI (September 2018) Support for space situational awareness (SSA) is required to enable military commanders and space operations center operators to maintain an advantage over our adversaries in the space enterprise. Well-designed visualization and human-computer […]
Enabling Military Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Simulations with a Flexible Peripheral Framework and Automated Assessments
Jenkins, M., Irvin, S., Wong-Faull, D., and Bird, L. Presented at the International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE), Orlando, FL (July 2018). The military virtual training and simulation market is forecast to be a $6B+ market through 2020, driven by the increasing immersiveness of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed […]
Preliminary Evaluations of Wearable XR Viewing and Interaction Hardware for Prolonged Use in Military Settings
Jenkins, M. and Talbot, T. Invited panel presentation for the 2018 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA (October 2018). In recent years, wearable augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (XR) technologies have supported users in a variety of domains to enhance situation awareness (SA), enable on-the-job training, foster effective communications, and support […]
Connected Vehicle Deployment for Bicycles and Motorcycles to Enhance Vulnerable Transit User Safety
Jenkins, M., Negri. A., and Duggan, D. Presented at the MassDOT Innovation & Tech Transfer Exchange, Worcester, MA (April 2018). Connected vehicle and smart city infrastructure technologies offer significant potential to enhance shared roadway safety and mobility; however, vulnerable transportation users have traditionally been overlooked with respect to how they will be connected to these […]
Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality Prototypes for Enhanced Battle Management and Command and Control (BMC2) Execution
Jenkins, M., Wollocko, A., Negri, A., and Fichtl, T. Invited paper for the 20th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2018). Las Vegas, NV (July 2018). This work provides an overview of three prototype augmented reality (AR) applications developed for the Microsoft HoloLens with the intention of exploring the strengths and weaknesses of AR for […]
Design of a Multimodal Interface Solution to Facilitate Nonmedical User Mediation of TBI Screening Using Virtual Reality
Presented at the International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care, Boston, MA (March 2018). Vestibular dysfunction (VD) commonly accompanies traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Assessments of VD are currently only conducted in clinical settings by highly trained medical professionals (e.g., otolaryngologists). These professionals use either: (1) subjective assessments requiring specific expertise to expose […]
Helmet-Mounted Displays to Support Off-Axis Pilot Spatial Orientation
Kane, S. and Kilgore, R. In: Chen J., Fragomeni G. (eds) Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: Applications in Health, Cultural Heritage, and Industry. VAMR 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 10910. Springer, Cham (June 2018). Aerial refueling is one of the most demanding and dangerous activities faced by pilots. To monitor refueling, pilots must […]
Context-aware Hands-free Multimodal Interfaces for Medical Information Documentation
Kane, S., McGeorge, N., Hogan, C., and Muller, C. To be presented at the Military Health System Research Symposium (MHSRS), Kissimmee, FL (August 2018) Background: Military and civilian medical personnel across all echelons of medical care play a critical role in evaluating, caring for, and treating Warfighters. Accurate medical documentation is critical to patient outcomes. However, […]
Modeling Perceptual Judgement in Believable Agents: A Signal Detection Approach
Lynn, S.1, Curley, T.2, and Weyhrauch, P.1 Presented at the joint annual meetings of the Society for Mathematical Psychology and the International Conference on Cognitive Modelling, Madison, WI (July 2018). A Warfighter in a combat environment is expected to continuously search his or her visual field to maintain situational awareness. Misidentification of relevant stimuli, such […]
A Predicative Processing Model of Categorical Perception
Lynn, S. Presented at the 2018 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS), Washington DC, USA (July 2018) Prior knowledge influences perception, as evidenced by categorical perception phenomena, in which expectations create psychometric distortions of perceptual space. These distortions are nonetheless associated with categorization accuracy. […]
Structured Factored Inference for Probabilistic Programming
Pfeffer, A., Ruttenberg, B., Kretschmer, W., and O’Connor, A. Presented at the 21st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS 2018), Lanzarote, Canary Islands (April 2018) Probabilistic reasoning on complex real-world models is computationally challenging. Inference algorithms have been developed that work well on specific models or on parts of general models, but they […]
Scruff: A Deep Probabilistic Cognitive Architecture
Pfeffer, A. Invited talk at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence’s Thirty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-18), New Orleans, LA (February 2018). Probabilistic programming is able to build rich models of systems that combine prior knowledge with the ability to learn from data. One of the reasons for the success of deep […]
The Support Method of Computing Expectations
Pfeffer, A. Extended abstract for the Probabilistic Program Semantics Workshop associated with the Principles of Programming Languages (POPL) conference, Los Angeles, CA (January 2018). A standard method for computing the expectation of a function on a probabilistic program is to sample values from the generative model and approximate the integral. An alternative approach is to […]
Using Reinforcement Learning for Probabilistic Program Inference
Pfeffer, A. Extended abstract for the Probabilistic Program Semantics Workshop associated with the Principles of Programming Languages (POPL) conference, Los Angeles, CA (January 2018). Inference in probabilistic programming often involves choosing between different methods. For example, one could use different algorithms to compute a conditional probability, or one could sample variables in different orders. Researchers […]
Predict and Analyze Novel and Emerging Diseases Enabled by Models of Infection Conditions
Prue, B.1, Voge, J.1, Mara, J.1, Wollocko, A.1, and Mekaru, S.2 Poster presentation at the International Conference of Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2018), Las Vegas, NV (July 2018) Incidents of infectious disease pose serious threats to armed forces worldwide, risking the success of critical operations and the deaths of Warfighters. Force medical personnel require support to […]
Understanding Cyberattack Behaviors with Sentiment Information on Social Media
Shu, K.2, Sliva, A.1, Sampson, J.2, and Liu, H.2 Presented at the 2018 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS), Washington DC, USA (July 2018) In today’s increasingly connected world, cyberattacks have become a serious threat with detrimental effects on individuals, businesses,and broader society. Truly mitigating […]
Lexicon and Schema Development for Domain Understanding and Ontology Design
Skipper, J., Hookway, S., and Gorman, J. In Ground/Air Multisensor Interoperability, Integration, and Networking for Persistent ISR IX (Vol. 10635, p. 1063514), International Society for Optics and Photonics (May 2018). Our recent experience working as part of a large team has enabled us to identify the role that terminology development plays in team coordination, idea generation, and […]
An Integrated Threat-based Approach to Intuitive Space Battle Management Understanding
Stouch, D., Jenkins, M., McCaffrey, J., and Catto, G. Air Force Research Laboratory Space Situational Awareness Conference, Kihei, HI (September 2018) To effectively conduct battle management command and control (BMC2) in space, operators need to understand the space environment well beyond what is required for traffic management that predicts potential conjunctions. Operators need to know […]
Contamination and Lasting Effects Analysis for Negative Substances and Elements
Voge, J., Jacobs, P., Negri, A., and Farry, M. Poster presented at the International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE), Orlando, FL (July 2018). Military training facility managers are tasked with understanding and responding to the long-term effects of contaminant releases. To mitigate disastrous environmental damage to ecosystems, military training facility managers must […]
Leveraging Systemic Functional Grammars for Script Analysis and Understanding Human Behavior
Sliva, A., Call, C., and Patten, T. Presented at the 45th International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC 2018), Boston, MA (July 2018). In sociolinguistics, it is desirable to understand not only social-functional aspects of language, but also the broader social and behavioral landscape. In psychology, script theory posits that human behavior follows discernable patterns, or “scripts,” […]
Predict and Analyze Novel and Emerging Diseases Enabled by Models of Infection Conditions
Prue, B.1, Voge, J.1, Mara, J.1, Wollocko, A.1, and Mekaru, S.2 Poster presentation at the International Conference of Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2018), Las Vegas, NV (July 2018) Incidents of infectious disease pose serious threats to armed forces worldwide, risking the success of critical operations and the deaths of Warfighters. Force medical personnel require support to […]
Reduced Interference in Working Memory Following Mindfulness Training is Associated with Increases in Hippocampal Volume
Greenberg, J., Romero, V., Elkin-Frankston, S., Bezdek, M., Schumacher, E., and Lazar, S. In Brain Imaging and Behavior, Springer US, 1931-7565 (2018). Proactive interference occurs when previously relevant information interferes with retaining newer material. Overcoming proactive interference has been linked to the hippocampus and deemed critical for cognitive functioning. However, little is known about whether and how this ability […]
Modeling Training Efficiency and Return on Investment for Adaptive Training: GIFT Integration
Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT) (May 2018) Adaptive training promises more effective training by tailoring content to each individual. Where non-adaptive training may be just right for one segment of the student population, there will be some students that find it too easy while others find it too difficult. Another, often ignored benefit of […]
Preliminary Evaluations of Wearable XR Viewing and Interaction Hardware for Prolonged Use in Military Settings
Garrett, G1., Reid, C1., Jenkins, M2., Talbot, T3., and Doherty, S4. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (September 2018). Augmented or mixed reality devices overlay computer-generated sensory information that alters one’s current view of the real world. Gaming, military, and instructional applications are fairly prevalent, however, industrial applications are still in their […]
No Evidence of Cognitive Improvement following tDCS-enhanced Mindfulness Meditation or Game-Based Brain Training
Elkin-Frankston, S.1, Lieberman, G.2,3,4,5, Guarino, S.1, Eusebi, L.1, Bezdek, M.6, Hunter, M.2,3, Lazar, S.7, Witkiewitz, K.2, Clark, V.2,3, Schumacher, E.6, and Romero, V.1 The 4th Annual BRAIN Initiatve Investigators Meeting, Rockville, MD (April 2018). Measures of fluid intelligence are highly predictive of performance across a wide range of contexts, including academic performance and career success, […]
Maritime Border Security using Sensors, Processing, and Platforms to Detect Dark Vessels
Eaton, R., German, S., and Balasuriya, A. IEEE International Symposium on Technologies for Homeland Security, Woburn, MA, (October 2018) Maritime security is critical to national prosperity, but with a large area to be secured and limited resources available, our current maritime situational awareness is not sufficient to secure our borders. This challenge is compounded by the […]
Interfacing Systemic Functional Grammars with Frame Semantics
Dohmann, J.1 2, Patten, T2., Campolongo, J.2 Presented at the 45th International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC 2018), Boston, MA (July 2018). As computational applications play a greater role in society, Systemic Functional Linguistics can play an important role in producing effective interactions between those applications and the people who use them. Significant progress has been […]
Development and Refinement of a Portable, Durable, Rugged Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Device
Bracken, B.1, Silva, F.2, Pacheco, M.2, deB Frederick, B.3, Palmon, N.1, and Leather, C.1 To be presented at the Military Health System Research Symposium (MHSRS), Kissimmee, FL (August 2018) Background: Army medic training often includes high-fidelity simulations. Trainers currently infer competence by observation alone—a challenging task. Assessing cognitive workload using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) when individuals are seated […]
Development and Validation of a Portable, Durable, Rugged Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Device
Bracken, B.1, Festa, E.2, Sun, H.2, Leather, C.1, Strangman, G.3, Palmon, N.1, Silva, F.4, Pacheco, M.4, and deB Frederick, B.5 Presented at the International Neuroergonomics Conference, Philadelphia, PA (June 2018) Background Assessing cognitive workload using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in labs is well established. Increased workload corresponds with increase in prefrontal blood oxygenation (HbO2) correlated with […]
Development and Refinement of a Portable, Durable, Rugged Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Device
Bracken, B.1, Festa, E.2, Sun, H.2, Leather, C.1, Strangman, G.3, Palmon, N.1, Pacheco, M.4, Silva, F.4, and deB Frederick, B.5 Presented at the 2018 Brain Health and Performance Summit, Columbus, OH (April 2018) Army medic training often includes high-fidelity simulations. Trainers currently infer competence by observation alone—a challenging task. Assessing cognitive workload using functional near-infrared […]
Scruff: A Deep Probabilistic Cognitive Architecture for Predictive Processing
Pfeffer, A. and Lynn, S. Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures 2018 The theory of predictive processing encompasses several elements that make it attractive as the underlying computational approach for a cognitive architecture. We introduce a new cognitive architecture, Scruff, capable of implementing predictive processing models by incorporating key properties of neural networks into the Bayesian probabilistic […]
Causal Learning and Explanation of Deep Neural Networks via Autoencoded Activations
Harradon, M., Druce, J., and Ruttenberg, B. arXiv:1802.00541v1 (February 2018) Deep neural networks are complex and opaque. As they enter application in a variety of important and safety critical domains, users seek methods to explain their output predictions. We develop an approach to explaining deep neural networks by constructing causal models on salient concepts contained […]