Hypermedia Presentation Research Articles

ENGLISH

This study addresses the development of an online authoring system that can be integrated into a typical digital archive system to facilitate the construction of online exhibitions. One common approach for the efficient online authoring is based on a principle that decomposes a hypermedia presentation into a “content document” and a “style template.” This study proposes a layer-based architecture to further decompose a style template into a number of presentation layers. The approach eases the burden for implementing large-scale style templates in digital museum projects demanding versatile presentation styles. Particular attention has been focused on the mechanism for affective background image composition that incorporates the concerns of the affective colour scheme and the page layout. A system implementation has been successfully applied in real world digital museum projects for constructing aesthetic online exhibitions. DOI: 10.14429/djlit.28.4.195

Tangible Interfaces for Interactive Multimedia Presentations

This article is devoted to tangible interfaces for steering and control of interactive multimedia presentations. Various methods for digital encoding of physical objects are considered and their applicability in surface encoding for tangible interface components is discussed. Experiments with presentation controls, based on direct interaction with digitally encoded printed handouts are reported. An innovative approach for transferring presentation controls from printed handouts to surfaces of real physical objects is introduced. Consequently labels, digitally enhanced with CLUSPI codes are created and presentation control trials involving real products with digitally encoded surfaces are conducted. USB and wireless cameras are employed as CLUSPI readers for implementing surface based interactions and a portable communication device with an embedded camera is considered as a possible truly mobile solution.

Use of An Interactive Multimedia Presentation to Improve Patient Understanding of Endoscopic Procedures and to Standardize the Informed Consent Process

Introduction: Before any procedure can be performed a patient must give informed consent, the situation where a person, (in the case of a child, a parent or guardian), agrees to the procedure based upon an appreciation and understanding of the facts and implications of the procedure. It is acknowledged that barriers to obtaining consent in general and for endoscopic procedures exist. Some of the barriers include: differences in physician communication styles, time constraints, language barriers, health care providers' use of jargon, and differences in patient and family members' literacy skills and learning styles. The aim of this study was to compare the usual procedure for obtaining informed consent to a procedure that was designed for easy understanding and for reproducibility. The experimental procedure incorporated a video with both visual and verbal information. Methods: 50 parents of child patients were randomly assigned to a control (usual procedure) or experimental condition. Participants in the experimental condition viewed an interactive multimedia presentation on upper and lower endoscopic procedures. All participants met with the physician performing the procedure. For the experimental group, consent was obtained after they had viewed the video and the usual process for obtaining consent was completed. All participants filled out pre and post measures, and answered a 12 question test on the endoscopic procedure that was to be performed. Results: Participants in the experimental group scored significantly higher than those in the control group on the 12 question test (p < .0001). The physician providing the informed consent perceived the experimental group as more knowledgeable than the control group (p = 0.04). Analysis of the post assessment results revealed an inverse relationship between participants' perceptions of how well they understood the procedure and their reported state anxiety (r = −.49, p < 0.0001). There was a significant positive correlation between how well participants understood the procedure and their reported level of satisfaction with medical care received (r = .58, p <0.0001). While both the experimental and control groups showed an increase in reported levels of state anxiety following the informed consent, participants in the experimental group showed less of an increase. Conclusion: These preliminary findings suggest that interactive multimedia presentations can increase patients' (or parent) understanding of upper and lower endoscopic procedures. When patient (or parent) understanding increases they report less anxiety and greater satisfaction with the medical care received.

Elastic time computation in QoS-driven hypermedia presentations

The development of hypermedia/multimedia systems requires the implementation of an element, usually known as formatter, which is in charge of receiving the specification of a document and controlling its presentation. Adjustments over the duration of media objects is one of the most important adaptation techniques that hypermedia formatters should implement in order to maintain document spatio-temporal relationships. Elastic time computation accomplishes this goal by stretching or shrinking the ideal duration of media objects. This paper presents new elastic time algorithms for adjusting hypermedia document presentations. The algorithms explore the flexibility offered by some hypermedia models in the definition of media-object durations, choosing objects to be stretched or shrunk in order to obtain the best possible quality of presentation. Our proposals are based on the “out-of-kilter” method for minimum-cost flow problems on temporal graphs. An aggregation procedure enhances the basic algorithm offering more flexibility in modeling real-life situations in comparison with other previous work based on linear programming.

A LABORATORY FOR PROTOTYPING AND TESTING MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATIONS

In this article we describe a prototyping environment, which allows an author to set up and test a complex hypermedia presentation. It contains a visual editor, based on a graph notation, in which the nodes are media objects and the edges are the synchronization relations between them; an execution simulator, which helps the author to test the presentation dynamics by manually triggering media related events; and a player, which allows the author to preview the presentation and to visually relate the execution evolution with the interpretation of the synchronization schema.

Modeling Elementary Cognitive Abilities for Adaptive Hypermedia Presentation

The adaptation of hypermedia can be carried out at three levels, namely the content, navigation and presentation level. The presentation level is the least studied of the three, apparently because it refers to user properties that are not easy to model. In this paper, we present a new approach to modeling cognitive abilities that relies on basic mental functionalities. We describe the Cognitive User Modeling for Adaptive Presentation of Hyper-Documents (CUMAPH) environment, which mainly provides an authoring tool and an adaptation engine. The aim of this environment is to adapt a hyper-document presentation by selecting the elements that best fit the user cognitive profile. Its architecture is based on four main components: a cognitive user model, a hyper-document builder, an adaptation engine and a generic style sheet. To validate our approach, we designed an innovative protocol and conducted an experimental study involving 39 students. The first results show that an adaptive presentation can significantly increase the efficiency of hypermedia presentations.

A dynamic Petri net model for iterative and interactive distributed multimedia presentation

Object Composition Petri Nets, Priority Petri Nets, Dynamic OCPN, and Enhanced P-Nets have extended the original Petri Net to achieve the modeling of media synchronization and asynchronous user interactions during multimedia playback. The dynamic Petri Net (DPN) has been conceptualized to tackle existing problems in these two areas of modeling distributed multimedia systems. DPN features dynamic modeling elements which allows iteration and hence is able to reduce graph sizes of synchronous playback models while allowing greater details to be shown. DPN also introduces asynchronous event handling techniques that are powerful and effective. DPN was used in the design and modeling of a multimedia orchestration tool which is a typical representation of an application that works in a distributed multimedia system.

Modelling Synchronized Hypermedia Presentations

This paper presents a synchronization model for hypermedia presentations. Several media, continuous, like video and audio files, and non-continuous, like text pages and images, are delivered separately in a distributed environment like the World Wide Web, and presented to the user in a coordinated way. The model is based on a set of synchronization relationships which define media behavior during presentation playback, channels in which to play them, and the effects of user interaction. The model is suited for a wide range of applications, among which self and distance education, professional training, Web advertising, cultural heritage promotion and news-on-demand are good representatives. The model is formally described in terms of changes in the presentation state due to media-related events. A virtual exhibition is analyzed as a test bed to validate the model.

Toward an integrated digital museum system – the Chi Nan experiences

The essential activities of a museum are multifaceted and include collection, preservation, research, exhibition, education, and entertainment. Hence, the march toward a full-fledged digital museum must evolve from the digital library concept with the addition of various interactive edutainment modules. In this paper, we describe various phases of the digital museum systems constructed by the National Chi Nan University, Taiwan, over the past few years. The design concepts and integration issues of essential digital museum modules are addressed. We have as our long-term goal the construction of an integrated digital museum that provides digital archives with user-friendly information access interfaces, intriguing virtual exhibitions, adaptive online courseware, and adaptive interactive games. A mechanism to facilitate the implementation of large-scale aesthetic exhibitions has been proposed. Our approach, the fine-grained modularization of aesthetic hypermedia presentations, concerns the balance between the complexity in the authoring process, the aesthetic qualities of final hypermedia presentations, and efforts at style template implementation. Moreover, various experiences and evaluations of content-based image retrieval, online courseware, and online interactive games will also be addressed. Future work toward an integrated digital museum system is proposed. Our digital museums can be accessed at http://dlm.ncnu.edu.tw.

Structured multimedia authoring

Authoring context sensitive, interactive multimedia presentations is much more complex than authoring either purely audiovisual applications or text. Interactions among media objects need to be described as a set of spatio-temporal relationships that account for synchronous and asynchronous interactions, as well as on-demand linking behavior. This article considers the issues that need to be addressed by an authoring environment. We begin with a partitioning of concerns based on seven classes of authoring problems. We then describe a selection of multimedia authoring environments within four different authoring paradigms: structured, timeline, graph and scripting. We next provide observations and insights into the authoring process and argue that the structured paradigm provides the most useful framework for presentation authoring. We close with an example application of the structured multimedia authoring paradigm in the context of our own structure-based system GRiNS.

Alan: An Action Language For Modelling Non-Markovian Domains

In this paper we present the syntax and semantics of a temporal action language named Alan, which was designed to model interactive multimedia presentations where the Markov property does not always hold. In general, Alan allows the specification of systems where the future state of the world depends not only on the current state, but also on the past states of the world. To the best of our knowledge, Alan is the first action language which incorporates causality with temporal formulas. In the process of defining the effect of actions we define the closure with respect to a path rather than to a state, and show that the non-Markovian model is an extension of the traditional Markovian model. Finally, we establish relationship between theories of Alan and logic programs.

HSGS: AN INTERACTIVE SYSTEM FOR HIGH-LEVEL SPECIFICATION AND GENERATION OF HYPERMEDIA PRESENTATIONS

In this paper we present a constraint-based approach for the fast prototyping of flexible hypermedia presentations. The key features of the proposed approach include: an extensive set of object types; a large variety of spatial and temporal relation types for combining objects into presentations; and relaxation techniques to automatically correct inconsistent specifications. Furthermore, our approach organizes presentations according to a multi-page model to increase reusability of presentation fragments and to support flexible content delivery to final users. The proposed approach has been implemented in the HSGS system that provides a tool for automatically generating presentations, coded in SMIL, according to the constraints specification given by presentation authors.

Toward intelligent styling for digital museum exhibitions: modularization framework for aesthetic hypermedia presentations

In current Web-based hypermedia environments, constructing and maintaining a large-scale interactive aesthetic hypermedia exhibition is a difficult task. In particular, the shaping of presentation styles requires tedious multimedia composing and is indeed extremely laborious. As our first step toward developing an intelligent styling system for digital museum exhibitions, this paper proposes a fine-grained modularization framework that decomposes the styling of a typical hypermedia presentation into fine-grained style modules (FGSM). A hypermedia document based on a “monomodal media handler” and a digital museum exhibition management framework have been designed to realize the concept of FGSM. We have implemented a Web-based authoring system that allows content providers to efficiently construct mediacentric, interactive, aesthetic hypermedia Web sites. In the future, relevant optimization and constraint-solving techniques will be exploited to achieve the goal of intelligent styling for digital museum exhibitions .

The Development of Web-based KTV Services over Campus Broadband Networks

On-demand and interactive media services are one of the key applications in broadband networking. However, most existing solutions are proprietary systems which can only run on limited platforms. In our previous work, we proposed an object-oriented design approach for developing a platform-neutral interactive multimedia presentation system for playing real-time MPEG streams. This paper presents a continuation of the previous work by providing interactivities between viewers and media sources. The resulting system is a Web-based KTV system over broadband networks on campus. The proposed system adheres to the emerging networked multimedia standards, which include controlling the playback of streaming media by RTSP, transmitting MPEG streams over the Internet by RTP, and describing the multimedia session by SDP. To tackle the issues of interoperability and cross-platform, we reuse the components developed in the previous work and appeal to the technology of Java media framework. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our design approach and the proposed system via actual experimentation on NKFUST campus.

Cognitive style, hypermedia navigation and learning

This study examined the influence of cognitive style, spatial orientation and computer expertise on hypertext navigation patterns and learning outcomes when participants interacted with a hypermedia presentation. A sample of 306 undergraduates was pre-tested both on their cognitive style and on their self-reported frequency and ability in using computers. From the initial sample, 40 students were selected to form four groups with the following characteristics: (a) 10 high computer users – sequential thinkers, (b) 10 high computer users – holistic thinkers, (c) 10 low computer users – sequential thinkers and (d) 10 low computer users – holistic thinkers. All participants completed a self-report questionnaire measuring spatial orientation and were then requested to browse freely a hypermedia presentation on the ancient Mayan civilisation. Finally, the students completed a post-test to assess the recall of the hypermedia presentation and the cognitive organisation of the acquired knowledge. The results indicated that hypermedia navigation behaviour was linked to computer skills rather than to cognitive style and that learning outcomes were unaffected by cognitive style or by computer skills. However, learning outcomes were positively affected by specific search patterns, that is by re-visiting hypermedia sections and visiting overview sections in the early stages of hypermedia browsing. Further, navigating overview sections and holistic processing fostered knowledge representation in the form of maps. These findings suggest that individual differences can affect hypermedia navigation even though their role in learning is complex and the impact of cognitive style on learning outcomes was proved to be less important than initially predicted.

Multi-channel publishing of interactive multimedia presentations

The ongoing convergence between TV and the Internet leads traditional broadcast companies to publish their content on the Internet. Interactive digital TV platforms, which support rich interactive multimedia applications, are targeted ever more frequently. New consumption platforms of this kind are predominantly built on Internet technologies, yet they have their own specific capabilities and limitations in both technical and presentational sense. Publishing interactive multimedia presentations to these platforms poses significant challenges for the generic description of the presentation content, and for the filters that convert these descriptions into final-form presentations. We present a generic publication framework that features a simple data model and a flexible filter architecture. It enables the conversion of a generic input description into presentations targeted at different consumer platforms. As such, it promotes content reuse across platforms, while allowing platform-specific optimizations. The data model and associated file format provide description language independence, essence abstraction and content reuse at a high semantic level. From this model, a structuring format is derived that can contain any presentation description. The architecture of the publication framework is modular and highly extensible, allowing for new input description languages and final-form presentation formats. We demonstrate the infrastructure by an example scenario in which an interactive weather report is being published onto four different platforms (Web, TV, MHP and WAP).

Augmented reality as an interface to adaptive hypermedia systems

Adaptive Hypermedia has sought to tackle the problems of dealing with complex, heavily structured information and the presentation of views of that structure to users. Increasingly, adaptive content is achieved through different forms of context. Using two case-study applications, we will reflect on how Augmented Reality may present solutions to a number of Adaptive Hypermedia presentation problems. Each case study describes a different physical interaction metaphor for exposing the complex adaptation of hypermedia content in an intuitive way. The preliminary findings of our early evaluations are discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn as to how Augmented Reality applications could use the modelling techniques of the Adaptive Hypermedia community to deal more easily with complex information.

Impact on Learning and Satisfaction of Web-Based Learning Systems: A Comparison of Linear vs. Hypermedia Presentations

The main goal of this study is to compare the impact of different information presentation systems on deep and surface learning and on satisfaction. Three computer information systems were developed: one linear only containing text (the less dynamic and less interactive of the three); a second one similar to the first one but containing both text and images (more dynamic than the first one); and a third one non-linear — hypermedia with a web-like interface — containing text and images (the more dynamic and interactive). Three university students groups learned the same information displayed by these three systems and the results show, first, that the less dynamic and interactive information presentation system provided higher results on surface learning; second, none of the systems provided good results on deep learning (because of the information fragmentation or lack of global coherence) and; third, the more dynamic and interactive system provided higher levels of satisfaction.

Personalised hypermedia presentation techniques for improving online customer relationships

This article gives a comprehensive overview of techniques for personalised hypermedia presentation. It describes the data about the computer user, the computer usage and the physical environment that can be taken into account when adapting hypermedia pages to the needs of the current user. Methods for acquiring these data, for representing them as models in formal systems and for making generalisations and predictions about the user based thereon are discussed. Different types of hypermedia adaptation to the individual user's needs are distinguished and recommendations for further research and applications given. While the focus of the article is on hypermedia adaptation for improving customer relationship management utilising the World Wide Web, many of the techniques and distinctions also apply to other types of personalised hypermedia applications within and outside the World Wide Web, like adaptive educational systems.

An algebra for creating and querying multimedia presentations

Over the last few years, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of interactive multimedia presentations prepared by different individuals and organizations. In this paper, we present an algebra for creating and querying interactive multimedia presentation databases. This algebra operates on trees whose branches reflect different possible playouts of a set of presentations. The algebra not only extends all the classical relational operators to such databases, but also introduces a variety of novel operators for combining multiple presentations. As our algebra supports merging parts or all of existing presentations, this algebra can also be used as an authoring tool for creating multimedia presentations. We prove a host of equivalence results for queries in this algebra, which may be used to build query optimizers for interactive presentation databases.