This research investigates the use of diverse visual knowledge communication tools in the multidisciplinary training produced in the BC4ECO project. During this project, teaching and learning content was developed to enable postgraduate learners to utilise blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to solve complex, real-world problems related to environmental sustainability. We examine how visual modelling techniques enhance comprehension across disciplines and facilitate interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration, particularly for learners who may not have prior programming or computer science knowledge. Findings suggest that using these tools leads to enhanced collaboration between computer scientists and non-computer scientists and aids in the facilitation of joint problem solving between seemingly disparate disciplines. Additionally, the study highlights how the use of tools for established software engineering modelling, like Visual Paradigm for UML, bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical implementation, strengthening problem solving skills and improving software development education.

Smartphones enable understanding human behavior with activity recognition to support people’s daily lives. Prior studies focused on using inertial sensors to detect simple activities (sitting, walking, running, etc.) and were mostly conducted in homogeneous populations within a country. However, people are more sedentary in the post-pandemic world with the prevalence of remote/hybrid work/study settings, making detecting simple activities less meaningful for context-aware applications. Hence, the understanding of (i) how multimodal smartphone sensors and machine learning models could be used to detect complex daily activities that can better inform about people’s daily lives, and (ii) how models generalize to unseen countries, is limited. We analyzed in-the-wild smartphone data and ∼ 216K self-reports from 637 college students in five countries (Italy, Mongolia, UK, Denmark, Paraguay). Then, we defined a 12-class complex daily activity recognition task and evaluated the performance with different approaches. We found that even though the generic multi-country approach provided an AUROC of 0.70, the country-specific approach performed better with AUROC scores in [0.79-0.89]. We believe that research along the lines of diversity awareness is fundamental for advancing human behavior understanding through smartphones and machine learning, for more real-world utility across countries.

Effective communication is crucial when working on complex or wicked problems in interdisciplinary, international teams. Developing a shared understanding of critical concepts and aligning knowledge, focus, and resources can be problematic when stakeholders speak different languages, span several disciplines and work within different national or industry-based norms. Using visual tools to represent critical concepts and their relations, and map out our strategic goals has greatly helped combat such issues. This paper recounts the use and impact of adopting visual tools within the transnational and interdisciplinary collaborative environment in the BC4ECO project's international consortium. The Miro Board and the canvas approach greatly helped represent, visualise, and thus concretise the structure and contents of our collaboration, which takes place within a 3 years ERASMUS+ framework that builds and delivers Summer School, MOOCS as well as teacher and multiplier events about harnessing the potential of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) for environmental sustainability. As the materials and MOOCS are expected to become Open Education Resources and have a wide impact, it is particularly crucial to get the contents as well as the pedagogy right, in spite of the team's differences in almost any dimension of background and culture.

Diversity-aware platform design is a paradigm that responds to the ethical challenges of existing social media platforms. Available platforms have been criticized for minimizing users' autonomy, marginalizing minorities, and exploiting users' data for profit maximization. This paper presents a design solution that centers the well-being of users. It presents the theory and practice of designing a diversity-aware platform for social relations. In this approach, the diversity of users is leveraged in a way that allows like-minded individuals to pursue similar interests or diverse individuals to complement each other in a complex activity. The end users of the envisioned platform are students, who participate in the design process. Diversity-aware platform design involves numerous steps, of which two are highlighted in this paper: 1) defining a framework and operationalizing the "diversity" of students, 2) collecting "diversity" data to build diversity-aware algorithms. The paper further reflects on the ethical challenges encountered during the design of a diversity-aware platform.

The current work investigates how creativity manifests when designers use data work in the early phase of design. Designers are increasingly interested in utilizing the massive amounts of data surrounding our everyday lives. However, data work is still challenging to incorporate into the design process. In this paper, we present a case study with three novice design teams who were tasked to integrate data work into their design process. During the study, we observed how creativity took place in framing a design problem. We present and discuss their actions from a creativity process perspective, highlighting how they used and rationalized data-inspired inquiries creatively in the early phase of design. The current results inform the development of a design framework to structure data work methodologically and coherently into design processes. We coin this design framework Exploratory Data Inquiry.

Achieving a full 3D auditory experience with head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) is still one of the main challenges of spatial audio rendering. HRTFs capture the listener's acoustic effects and personal perception, allowing immersion in virtual reality (VR) applications. This paper aims to investigate the connection between listener sensitivity in vertical localization cues and experienced presence, spatial audio quality, and attention. Two VR experiments with head-mounted display (HMD) and animated visual avatar are proposed: (i) a screening test aiming to evaluate the participants' localization performance with HRTFs for a non-visible spatialized audio source, and (ii) a 2 minute free exploration of a VR scene with five audiovisual sources in a both non-spatialized (2D stereo panning) and spatialized (free-field HRTF rendering) listening conditions. The screening test allows a distinction between good and bad localizers. The second one shows that no biases are introduced in the quality of the experience (QoE) due to different audio rendering methods; more interestingly, good localizers perceive a lower audio latency and they are less involved in the visual aspects.

This paper presents two within-subjects studies (n=23) exploring how different combinations of visual and auditory feedback influence perceived realism, virtual self-perception and the experience of safety during walks on a virtual platform suspended over a canyon. In the first study, the frequency factor of the footstep sounds was altered and the visual appearance was changed between a newly built wooden bridge and an old bridge with a weaker structure and broken planks. In the second study, the sounds of creaking wood were added to the footstep sounds in half of the trails and compared against footsteps without creaking sounds. Moreover, the frequency factor of the frequency controls for footsteps was also manipulated between trails, but the visual appearance of the bridge was limited to the model of the old broken bridge.

In this paper we describe an experiment aiming to investigate the impact of auditory feedback in a virtual reality supermarket scenario. The participants were asked to read a shopping list and collect items one by one and place them into a shopping cart. Three conditions were presented randomly, where audio feedback was (1) absent, (2) had impact sounds for collisions including when grasping, (3) had impact sounds as well as continuous sounds when moving the products. The subjects experience of the simulation during the three experimental conditions were studied using a questionnaire where ratings on presence, body ownership, awareness of own movements, usability and enjoyment were collected. The results are presented and discussed.

An experiment investigated the subjective experiences of ownership and agency of a pair of virtual wings attached to a motion controlled avatar in an immersive virtual reality setup. A between groups comparison of two ways of controlling the movement of the wings and flight ability. One where the subjects achieved the wing motion and flight ability by using a hand-held video game controller and the other by moving the shoulder. Through four repetitions of a flight task with varying amounts of self-produced audio feedback (from the movement of the virtual limbs), the subjects evaluated their experienced embodiment of the wings on a body ownership and agency questionnaire. The results shows significant differences between the controllers in some of the questionnaire items and that adding self-produced sounds to the avatar, slightly changed the subjects evaluations.

This experiment aimed to investigate whether a user controlling a full body avatar via real time motion tracking in an immersive virtual reality setup, would estimate the weight of the virtual avatar differently if the footstep sounds are manipulated using three different audio filter settings. The visual appearance of the avatar was available in two sizes. The subjects performed six walks with each audio configuration active once over two ground types. After completing each walk, the participants were asked to estimate the weight of the virtual avatar and the suitability of the audio feedback. The results indicate that the filters amplifying the two lower center frequencies altered the subjects estimates of the weight of the avatar body towards being heavier than when compared with the filter with the higher center frequency. There were no significant differences between the weight estimates of the two groups using the different avatar bodies.

We describe two psychophysical experiments where we have quantified how much humans can unknowingly be redirected by auditory stimuli. The experiments use a two-alternative-forced-choice task. We tested 19 subjects in two different experiments: (E1) discrimination between virtual and physical rotation, and (E2) discrimination of path curvature. In experiment E1 subjects performed rotations with different gains, and then had to choose whether the auditory perceived rotation was smaller or greater than the physical rotation. In experiment E2 subjects estimate the path curvature when walking a curved path in the real world while the visual display shows a straight path in the virtual world. Our results show that users can be turned physically about 20% percent more or 12% less than the perceived virtual rotation, and users can be redirected on a circular arc while they believe they are walking straight.

Introducing continuous sonic interaction in augmented pop-up books enhances the expressive and performative qualities of movables, making the whole narrative experience more engaging and personal. The SaMPL Spring School on Sounding Popables explored the specific topic of paper-driven sonic narratives. Working groups produced several sketches of sonic interactions with movables. The most significant sketches of sounding popables are presented and analyzed.