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Publications (65)
Pavement roughness is an expression of the irregularities in a pavement surface that adversely affect the ride quality of a vehicle. Roughness also affects vehicle delay costs, fuel consumption, tires, and maintenance costs. Roughness is predominantly characterized by the international roughness index (IRI), which is often measured with inertial pr...
One of the foremost challenges confronting society today is the vulnerability of critical physical infrastructures in urban areas to extreme events. The major challenge in these scenarios despite the availability of the means of communication (e.g. ad-hoc networks, hand held devices) is the lack of trust among the first responders due to their havi...
Nature-based systems are efficiently designed and are able to respond to many system requirements such as scalability, adaptability, self-organization, resilience, robustness, durability, reliability, self-monitoring, self-repair, and many others. Using nature's examples as guidepost, there is a unique platform for developing more environmentally s...
One of the most ignored, but urgent and vital challenges confronting society today is the vulnerability of urban areas to extreme events. Current organization of response systems, predominantly based on a command and control model, limits their effectiveness and efficiency. Particularly, in decision-making processes where a large number of actors m...
When an extreme event hits an urban area, the efficiency and effectiveness of the first response have a profound effect on disaster relief efforts. The redefinition of the civil engineers' role and responsibilities as first response team members, along with an enhanced collaboration between disaster relief organizations, will greatly improve first...
In some medical areas, video activity recognition has been used for patient rehabilitation, evaluating their performance doing some exercises to determine if they are correct or not. In this article we emphasize this approach applied on older adults’ physical activity motivated by the problem caused by falls in this segment of the population. Furth...
Background:
We recently reported in a phase-III, randomized controlled trial that a behavioral intervention based on social cognitive theory (SCT) and delivered through the Internet using e-learning approaches increased device-measured minutes/day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) over a 6-month period among persons with multiple sc...
Background
We undertook a phase-III, randomized controlled trial (RCT) that examined the effectiveness of a behavioral intervention based on social cognitive theory (SCT) and delivered through the Internet using e-learning approaches for immediate and sustained increases in physical activity among persons with multiple sclerosis (MS).
Method
The s...
Background:
We undertook a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that investigated the effectiveness of a theory-based, Internet-delivered, behavioral intervention focusing on physical activity promotion for immediate and sustained improvements in secondary, patient-reported outcomes (PROs) of function, symptoms, and quality of life (QOL) in multiple...
Functional mobility assessments (i.e., Timed Up and Go) are commonly used clinical tools for mobility and fall risk screening in older adults. In this work, we proposed a new Mixed Reality (MR)-based assessment that utilized a Microsoft HoloLensTM headset to automatically lead and track the performance of functional mobility tests, and subsequently...
Falls are a major health problem for older adults with significant physical and psychological consequences. The first step of successful fall prevention is to identify those at risk of falling. Recent technology advancement offers the possibility of objective, lowcost and self-guided fall risk assessment. The present work evaluated the preliminary...
Functional mobility assessments (i.e., Timed Up and Go) are commonly used clinical tools for mobility and fall risk screening in the aging population. In this work, we proposed a new Mixed Reality (MR)-based assessment that utilized a Microsoft HoloLensTM headset to automatically lead and track the performance of functional mobility tests, and subs...
A priority for sustainable development is education in the reduction
of the risk of a disaster. Disasters have a profound effect in societies and their economies. Undergraduate students are seldom trained to engage in authentic emergencies. Video game technology may provide an educational tool for promoting the acquisition of new knowledge. Epistem...
Falls are a major health problem for older adults with significant physical and psychological consequences. The first step of successful fall prevention is to identify those at risk of falling. Recent technology advancement offers the possibility of objective, low-cost and easy-to-implement fall risk assessment. The present work evaluated the valid...
This study describes the level of adoption of information and communication technologies in teaching in three Latin American countries. It also analyzes factors that affect the process by which teachers incorporate these technologies into their classrooms. In order to do so, an online survey was conducted with 89 teachers. The results show that mos...
Earthquakes have a profound social and economic impact when they hit densely populated urban areas. Early and Quick Safety and Structural Stability Assessment of Critical Physical Infrastructure, affected by large-scale disasters such as earthquakes, is a key task that determines potential outcomes of further activities like urban search and rescue...
Field operations carried out by mobile users in inhospitable contexts like disaster relief or battlefield require that the communication between those mobile users is as effective and efficient as possible. To facilitate such communication, a highly available communication platform is required. This article envisions that Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MA...
Emergency management systems require skills from decision makers to mitigate the impact of disasters, reducing fatalities and economic losses. Virtual learning environments have the potential to support the development of those capabilities. In particular, situated learning grounded on serious video games may promote the legitimate peripheral parti...
Effective and efficient assessment of structural stability of critical physical infrastructure affected by a disaster is a key task during disaster response. However, real world training of staff performing this task is an operationally complex and expensive activity. This work presents a framework for the development of video games to improve the...
El Yali National Reserve is a protected area that is
priority number one for the National Forestry Corporation
(CONAF). It is located in the V region of Chile, where the risk of
wildfire is quite high. In this context, training actors involved in
combating wildfire is a relevant issue. Under the simulation of
serious video games, a simulator that a...
Disclosed is a flexible, multi-modal system useful in communications among users, capable of synchronizing real world and augmented reality, wherein the system is deployed in centralized and distributed computational platforms. The system comprises input devices to generate signals representing speech, gestures, pointing direction, and location of...
Pavement roughness is the surface unevenness which adversely affects ride comfort. Basically, roughness is computed by measuring the vehicle suspension motion. It is expressed by International Roughness Index (IRI) with a unit of inch/mile or m/km. Roughness is very important information to the pavement management group, and maintenance and rehabil...
Designing and evaluating serious video games to improve cognitive performance plays a key role in promoting acceptance and usability of the elderly, while it aims to attenuate the cognitive deterioration during aging on the long run. To this end, this article presents a videogame prototype that is based on personalization to support self-care in ag...
Prompt assistance to people involved in vehicle accidents could make a significant difference on the consequences of such accidents. Some vehicle manufacturers include technology embedded into the vehicles they build to detect and communicate crash vehicle events to emergency agencies. Nevertheless, this approach adds cost to the vehicles, and as i...
Recently, the use of video games has been extended to attenuate the cognitive deterioration in elderly. However, not all interventions based on videogames have shown benefits, and very limited research has been made on the design and evaluation of serious videogames that promote a change of attitude in the players, along with entertainment, to prop...
Technology adoption is usually modeled as a process with dynamic transitions between costs and benefits. Nevertheless, school teachers do not generally make effective use of technology in their teaching. This article describes a study designed to exhibit the interplay between two variables: the type of technology, in terms of its complexity of use,...
Effective communication among first responders during response to natural and human-made large-scale catastrophes has increased tremendously during the last decade. However, most efforts to achieve a higher degree of effectiveness in communication lack synergy between the environment and the technology involved to support first responders operation...
Loosely coupled mobile work is characterized by nomadic workers collaborating in sporadically and on-demand ways. Supporting
nomadic workers’ interactions requires knowing the location of the potential collaborator; therefore, indoor/outdoor positioning
systems play a key role. Locating persons in outdoor environments is well addressed by Global Po...
Real time situational awareness has the potential to improve the response and management of intelligent transportation system (ITS) components in critical situations. In the event of sudden or potentially dangerous situations, such as hazardous material spills or reckless driving, every second counts to reduce the overall impact of the event. Curre...
Practice activities are a key issue for science education students. Typically, these activities are carried out by a community
of practice (practicing students and professors) using physical or centralized electronic portfolios. However, these alternatives
are limited when the community members need to share the portfolio resources, any time and an...
With the rapid development of short-range wireless technology new venues to apply it in more sophisticated, complex, and dynamic
environments have been opened. Nevertheless, the applicability of such technology in non-traditional settings like face-to-face
encounters and disaster relief environments, remains unclear. This article describes a resear...
Many groupware applications developed on top of platforms supporting collaborative work are limited in their portability and interoperability because they are platform locked. In heterogeneous scenarios, such as disaster relief efforts or police operations, the interoperability of the several systems becomes a critical issue to coordinate the effor...
Remote experimentation laboratories are systems based on real equipment, allowing students to perform practical work through
a computer connected to the internet. In engineering fields lab activities play a fundamental role. Distance learning has
not demonstrated good results in engineering fields because traditional lab activities cannot be covere...
The vulnerability of urban areas to extreme events is a vital challenge confronting society today. Response to such events
involves a large number of organizations that had no past interactions with each other but are required to collaborate during
disaster relief efforts. Participants from diverse teams need to form an integrated first response gr...
The conference offers a note of thanks and lists its reviewers. XXIV International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society
Locating trapped people under rubble is a key task that first responders must develop as efficiently as possible. Inhospitable
and chaotic environments resulting from a natural or human-induced disaster make inappropriate the use of the Global Positioning
System, or other semi-infrastructure solution, for localizing survivors due to its limited out...
Locating trapped people under rubble is a key task that first responders must develop as efficiently as possible. Inhospitable and chaotic environments resulting from a natural or human-induced disaster make inappropriate the use of the Global Positioning System, or other semi-infrastructure solution, for localizing survivors due to its limited out...
The aim of this work is to provide tools to facilitate the encounter of people that are physically close and are (usually)
moving in a given setting. In this way unknown people, or people that do not know about others need or knowledge, could meet
in a face to face scenario to establish a collaborative relation. The idea of Socialware is enhanced t...
Efficiency oriented activities require some people to collaborate in order to achieve better results. People, who don't necessarily know to each other, need to be organized, communicated, and coordinated effectively to achieve a successful outcome. Today's technological advances permit to set up a group of handheld and wireless devices as a network...
The number of victims rescued alive when a disaster occurs depends on the efficiency of search and rescue teams. Hence, communication, coordination and collaboration must be developed as best as possible. Currently the communication infrastructure, radio gear, permits us only to transfer audio signals, so enhancing group interaction by providing co...
Efficiency oriented activities require some people to collaborate in order to achieve better results. People, who don't necessarily know to each other, need to be organized, communicated, and coordinated effectively to achieve a successful outcome. Today's technological advances permit to set up a group of handheld and wireless devices as a network...
Tesis (Doctor en Ciencias de la Ingeniería)--Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2004.