Omar Abou KhaledUniversity of Applied Sciences and Arts, Western Switzerland, Fribourg · HumanTech Institute
Omar Abou Khaled
PhD
About
323
Publications
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Introduction
Omar Abou Khaled is Professor in computer science at HES-SO campus Fribourg (EIA-FR). He holds a PhD in Computer Science received from the Perception and Automatic Control Group of HEUDIASYC Laboratory of « Université de Technologie de Compiègne », and a Master in Computer Science from the same university. Since 1996 he has been working as research assistant in the MEDIA group of the Theoretical Computer Science Laboratory of EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in the field of Educat
Additional affiliations
September 2000 - present
October 1999 - present
Publications
Publications (323)
In the rapidly evolving field of virtual reality (VR), deep user immersion remains a major challenge for researchers and developers alike. Effectively integrating emotional cues into VR environments to enhance the user experience could be a key issue. This study introduces a positive advancement by presenting an innovative solution that combines au...
Introduction
The use of multiple interfaces may improve the perception of a stronger relationship between a conversational virtual coach and older adults. The purpose of this paper is to show the effect of output combinations [single-interface (chatbot, tangible coach), multi-interface (assignment, redundant-complementary)] of two distinct conversa...
Photovoltaic installations can be environmentally beneficial to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the conditions. If the energy produced is not used, it is redirected to the grid, otherwise a battery with a high ecological footprint is needed to store it. To alleviate this problem, an innovative recommender system is proposed for residents o...
This paper presents the architecture and a preliminary prototype of a system for detecting stress during immersive virtual reality (VR) simulations. The VR4AGE system is designed for professionals that wish to use virtual reality headsets to allow older adults with dementia to experience 360 videos with an increased safety. The system aims at using...
People with intellectual disability (ID) should routinely train themselves to carry out a variety of daily challenging tasks while being supervised by one or more supervisors. Virtual reality (VR) technology enables the simulation of certain learning scenarios that would be risky or difficult to set up or repeatedly replicate in the actual world. T...
This dataset contains data of 346 drivers collected during six experiments conducted in a fixed-base driving simulator. Five studies simulated conditionally automated driving (L3-SAE), and the other one simulated manual driving (L0-SAE). The dataset includes physiological data (electrocardiogram (ECG), electrodermal activity (EDA), and respiration...
This article describes a tangible interface for an e-coach, co-designed in four countries to meet older adults’ needs and expectations. The aim of this device is to coach the user by giving recommendations, personalized tasks and to build empathy through vocal, visual, and physical interaction. Through our co-design process, we collected insights t...
Advanced driver assistances are becoming increasingly common in commercial cars, not only to assist but also to free drivers from manual driving whenever possible. Soon, drivers should be allowed to engage in non-driving-related tasks. The fact that responsibility for driving is shifting from humans to machines must be considered in the development...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, most people around the world started using internet and online technologies for multiple purposes. A very common digital transformation is online learning or e-learning. Despite its importance, online learning has several issues compared to standard learning. One of the most issues of concern is cheating between studen...
Search engines are among the most popular web services on the World Wide Web. They facilitate the process of finding information using a query-result mechanism. However, results returned by search engines contain many duplications. In this paper, we introduce a new content-type-based similarity computation method to address this problem. Our approa...
Drivers are often held responsible for road crashes. Previous research has shown that stressors such as carrying passengers in the vehicle can be a source of accidents for young drivers. To mitigate this problem, this study investigated whether the presence of a passenger behind the wheel can be predicted using machine learning, based on physiologi...
Empathy plays a crucial role in human life, and the evolution of technology is affecting the way humans interact with machines. The area of affective computing is attracting considerable interest within the human–computer interaction community. However, the area of empathic interactions has not been explored in depth. This systematic review explore...
This article describes the coaching strategies of the NESTORE e-coach, a virtual coach for promoting healthier lifestyles in older age. The novelty of the NESTORE project is the definition of a multi-domain personalized pathway where the e-coach accompanies the user throughout different structured and non-structured coaching activities and recommen...
In this work, we propose a low-cost solution capable of collecting the driver’s respiratory signal in a robust and non-intrusive way by contact with the chest and abdomen. It consists of a microcontroller and two piezoelectric sensors with their respective 3D printed plastic housings attached to the seat belt. An iterative process was conducted to...
In future conditionally automated driving, drivers may be asked to take over control of the car while it is driving autonomously. Performing a non-driving-related task could degrade their takeover performance, which could be detected by continuous assessment of drivers' mental load. In this regard, three physiological signals from 80 subjects were...
Conditionally automated cars share the driving task with the driver. When the control switches from one to another, accidents can occur, especially when the car emits a takeover request (TOR) to warn the driver that they must take the control back immediately. The driver’s physiological state prior to the TOR may impact takeover performance and as...
In this study, we investigate how to make takeover in conditionally automated vehicles safer optimizing the takeover request modalities. Using Machine Learning algorithms, we created a smart agent recommending the best modalities combination to use (haptic-visual, auditory-visual and haptic-auditory-visual) to convey a takeover request. This agent...
Takeover scenarios in conditionally autonomous driving are critical and should be conducted optimally in order to ensure the driver's safety. Using Machine Learning, we propose a model able to predict the takeover quality, an aggregation of two widely used takeover metrics: reaction time and maximum steering wheel angle. The prediction is made usin...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, most people around the world started using internet and online technologies for multiple purposes. A very common digital transformation is online learning or e-learning. Despite its importance, online learning has several issues compared to standard learning. One of the most issues of concern is cheating between studen...
Autonomous driving will change the role of the driver. From being the main actor in driving, the driver will now have a supervisory role during the autonomous driving phases. However, if the driver has to take over control of the vehicle, he must be aware of the situation around him. This is why it is important to develop interfaces to keep him in...
Background
Conversational agents, which we defined as computer programs that are designed to simulate two-way human conversation by using language and are potentially supplemented with nonlanguage modalities, offer promising avenues for health interventions for different populations across the life course. There is a lack of open-access and user-fr...
Cet article porte sur la conception d'un compagnon digital pour aider à l'orchestration d'un jeu. Intégré dans un jeu (Geome) qui allie éléments tangibles et numériques, ce compagnon repose sur la collecte de traces multimodales mises à disposition du maître du jeu et des joueurs. Conçu selon une recherche de type orientée par la conception, le pro...
Pour cette démonstration nous proposons le jeu Geome, qui traite du rapport de l'Homme à la nature, et qui se joue dans un environnement mixte (nu-mérique et tangible), au Musée de la Nature dans le Valais Suisse dans un con-texte de visite scolaire (12-15 ans). Afin d'aider le maitre du jeu à orchestrer la partie, nous présentons également DigitCo...
This chapter discusses the theoretical behaviour change framework and its integration and implementation of behaviour change techniques that form the conceptual psychological basis for innovative but efficient coaching approach. We review the current state of e-coaching solutions for older adults that can be found in the literature and identify gap...
E-coaches are promising tools for health interventions, being scalable and relatively low costs compared to human coaches. Nevertheless, they cannot compare to humans when it comes to trust and social companionship. Hence, many researches were held around the importance of tangible user interfaces in building trust and companionship during human-ma...
Nutritional monitoring is an important aspect of providing a healthy lifestyle and smarter food consumption. Food recognition is a key task in nutrition monitoring applications especially of interest for older people suffering from malnutrition and unhealthy eating. In order to ease the problem of food intake monitoring, recent health apps involve...
The current research proposes a technological system “NESTORE” designed for and with older adults in four different countries in order to improve and sustain their wellbeing. The system personalized activities and architecture, co-designed interfaces, and its multilingual aspect aim to establish an ‘inclusion’ criterion based on the user’s sociocul...
The blockchain technology offers reliability, decentralization, security and credibility. Blockchain solutions can be based on smart contracts and on the use of utility tokens which may represent a utility of a company like limited fashion items, cars, car parts or even human biological samples stored in biobanks. However, decentralization comes wi...
As the European population is getting older, there is an increasing need in maintaining older adults living independently at home. Vocal assistants may offer various services that can be beneficial for senior citizens. In the context of the Silver&Home living lab, we tested the Google Home Smart speaker connected to smart lighting installation with...
Today, chatbots have evolved to include artificial intelligence and machine learning, such as Natural Language Understanding (NLU). NLU models are trained and run on remote servers because the resource requirements are large and must be scalable. However, people are increasingly concerned about protecting their data. To be efficient, the current NL...
The integration of technology, namely virtual reality, with arts is implemented in this paper. An observational study is performed by replicating an actual museum by a Swiss-Lebanese artist and having user experience it in a virtual immersive environment. Data is then collected to monitor the user experience and its effects on his emotional and psy...
The use of automation in cars is increasing. In future vehicles, drivers will no longer be in charge of the main driving task and may be allowed to perform a secondary task. However, they might be requested to regain control of the car if a hazardous situation occurs (i.e., conditionally automated driving). Performing a secondary task might increas...
Takeover requests in conditionally automated vehicles are a critical point in time that can lead to accidents, and as such should be transmitted with care. Currently, several studies have shown the impact of using different modalities for different psychophysiological states, but no model exists to predict the takeover quality depending on the psyc...
Cyber Therapy is a research project based on the relationship between Computer Science and Psychology. We are working on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to severe traffic accidents using a virtual reality driving simulator and ECG, EDA and breathing sensors. With the help of virtual reality (VR) our goal is to build one software that can...
Background:
Chronic pain is a complex problem for many older adults that affects both physical functioning and psychological well-being. Mobile health (mHealth) technologies have shown promise in supporting older persons in managing chronic conditions. Cognitive behavior therapy is recommended for older people with chronic pain. However, web-based...
Search engines are among the most popular web services on the World Wide Web. They facilitate the process of finding information using a query-result mechanism. However, results returned by search engines contain a lot of duplications. For instance, when a user searches for a query q on Google, he will get n number of links divided into m number of...
BACKGROUND
Conversational agents, which we defined as computer programs that are designed to simulate two-way human conversation by using language and are potentially supplemented with nonlanguage modalities, offer promising avenues for health interventions for different populations across the life course. There is a lack of open-access and user-fr...
Chatbots are computer programs aiming to replicate human conversational abilities through voice exchanges, textual dialogues, or both. They are becoming increasingly pervasive in many domains like customer support, e-coaching or entertainment. Yet, there is no standardised way of measuring the quality of such virtual agents. Instead, multiple indiv...
Is it helpful for a medical physical health chatbot to show empathy? How can a chatbot show empathy only based on short-term text conversations? We have investigated these questions by building two different medical assistant chatbots with the goal of providing a diagnosis for physical health problem to the user based on a short conversation. One c...
In the context of the fourth revolution in healthcare technologies, leveraging monitoring and personalization across different domains becomes a key factor for providing useful services to maintain and promote well-being. This is even more crucial for older people, with aging being a complex multi-dimensional and multi-factorial process which can l...
In conditionally automated driving, drivers do not have to constantly monitor their vehicle but they must be able to take over control when necessary. In this paper, we assess the impact of instructions about limitations of automation and the presentation of context-related information through a mobile application on the situation awareness and tak...
Background:
Connected bike computers can support professional cyclists in achieving better performances but interacting with them requires taking their hands off the handlebar compromising focus and safety.
Objective:
This research aims at exploring the design of an ergonomic interface based on micro-gestures that can allow cyclists to interact...
The possibility to move independently outdoor has a huge impact on the quality of life. However, it requires complex skills, difficult to acquire for youth with intellectual disabilities (ID). They need an engaging and varied environment in which they can safely train these skills for all the time they may need. We present an exploratory study that...
In this paper, we propose a model for an AI-Companion for conditionally automated cars, able to maintain awareness of the driver regarding the environment but also to able design take-over requests (TOR) on the fly, with the goal of better support the driver in case of a disengagement. Our AI-Companion would interact with the driver in two ways: fi...
Interactions with treadmills are based on pressing buttons or through a touchscreen. However, these interactions require the user to touch the frontal dashboard of the treadmill while running. Indeed, for each interaction that the runner does, the user needs to break her/his running form to reach the interface. Those actions cost also some addition...
The population of people age 65 or over is increasing especially in Europe [3]. Granting to this target population a longer and healthier life is paramount for the European Community. In the context of the H2020 EU funded project “NESTORE” [11], an embodied and ubiquitous e-coach is being developed seeking to change the lifestyle of seniors in diff...
Humans nowadays are tending to spend too much time in front of their screens. Direct interaction between humans is falling in numbers and people are losing their empathic behaviour. By integrating empathy and emotions in everyday objects researchers can address this problem. In addition we can have a positive effect on our lives, from physical and...
Virtual Coaches, also known as e-coaches, are a disruptive technology in healthcare. Indeed, among other usages, they might provide cost-effective solutions for increasing human wellbeing in different domains, such as physical, nutritional, cognitive, social, and emotional. This paper presents a systematic review of virtual coaches specifically aim...
Daily life problems, can lead to distress, which has a harmful effect on health. Individuals are using machines for longer period. Machines should now have the ability to understand and show empathy which relies on trying to help the other through their emotional situation. In this study, showing empathy is done by reducing the effect of negative s...
The PersonAge VR project has the two-folded goal of using Virtual Reality (VR) and interactive storytelling to divulge the research and knowledge in the field of ageism and, in the process, to raise awareness about ageism in the population. The system we conceived and developed allows experiencing ageism under three different points of view: the vi...
Alert Center is a platform aiming at detecting outbreaks caused by food toxin infections and food intoxications in Switzerland. It does this by analyzing tweets and sending alerts to the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) when a risk is detected. The platform is composed of four main parts: a real-time extractor that targets tweets ba...
The digitalization of humanitarian supply chains allows overcoming one of the greatest difficulties faced by NGOs and governments in managing health equipment in crisis situations: the visibility of stocks and consumption at the end of the chain. This paper presents the design process of the health equipment inventory management system developed to...
This paper presents the R’SENS project, the design for a system leveraging the Internet of Things to connect the dots between the user, her car and her environment through the integration of tools belonging to different domains, such as the connected car, the quantified self and web services. The aim of this study is to test a concept through a pro...
Athletes seek to constantly improve their performances pushing their limits and overwork is often the direct consequence of this behavior. This is not a common problem for professionals, who usually are followed by a coach, but it is a growing phenomenon in amateur sports, which drives people to get injured because of overtraining or incorrect move...
Autonomous vehicles are developing rapidly and will lead to a significant change in the driver's role: he/she will have to move from the role of actor to the role of supervisor. Indeed, the driver will soon be able to perform a secondary task but he/she must be able to take over control in the event of a critical situation that is not managed by th...
Semi-autonomous driving is rapidly evolving and one of its major issues is the reduction of the driver's attention to his/her environment. After a brief study of current interactions increasing this situational awareness, and more particularly haptic interactions, this article proposes the use of vibrations in the seat. Vibrations, due to their loc...
Virtual Reality (VR) has three main advantages: allowing safe simulations, experimenting different conditions for the same scenario, and providing the perfect replicability of the scenarios. We present a feasibility study on the use of VR and VR immersive headsets to assist young adults (10-18) with intellectual disabilities in learning new skills....
We investigated how the presentation and the manipulation of an optical flow while running on a treadmill affect perceived locomotor speed (Experiment 1) and gait parameters (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, 12 healthy participants were instructed to run at an imposed speed and to focus on their sensorimotor sensations to be able to reproduce this r...
Recent years show an increasing popularity of chatbots, with latest efforts aiming to make them more empathic and human-like, finding application for example in customer service or in treating mental illnesses. Thereby, emphatic chatbots can understand the user's emotional state and respond to it on an appropriate emotional level. This survey provi...
Autonomous vehicles are developing rapidly and will lead to a significant change in the driver's role: s/he will have to move from the role of actor to the role of supervisor. Indeed, s/he will soon be able to perform a secondary task but s/he must be able to take over control when a critical situation is not managed by the driving system. The role...