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Welcome to My DREU Web-Site

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Luis Felipe Jimenez is an undergraduate student at Kean University (www.kean.edu), majoring in Computer Science. He came to USA in 2005 from Colombia.

In summer 2011, Luis became a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. The McNair Program (www.kean.edu/~mcnair) promotes academic excellence by preparing low-income, first generation, and traditionally underrepresented students for doctoral studies. As a McNair scholar on summer of 2010 he had the opportunity to have his first experience doing research; his first research was called “Assessment of Computational Thinking Knowledge and tools Among High School Teachers” He developed questions for mathematics, science, and computer science teachers attending a professional development workshop at Kean University. Furthermore, he analyzed the teacher's responses to those questions. This data is contributing to a larger study on the tools used by high school teachers to teach computational thinking to their students. He conducted this research under his advisor Dr. Patricia Morreale, chairperson of the Department of Computer Science at Kean University. This work was published as followed, “Measuring the Impact of Computational Thinking Workshops on High School Teachers”.

In 2011, during the scholar year 2011 – 2012, Luis was a member of the Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates (CREU) research team funded by the CRA-W from this research a research paper was published, “Attracting High School Students to Computing: A Case Study with Drag-Drop Interfaces” in the ED Media conference. Which obtained the First Place Best Research Paper Award, as well as the First Place Best Undergraduate Research Project Award according to the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. As well, Luis presented a poster of the research project in April 2011, during the Research Day at Kean University.

In 2011, Luis was awarded with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer Science Scholarship with a total of $8,500.00 per year for a period of two years. This scholarship was given to potential Computer Science students at Kean University.

In summer 2012, Felipe got accepted to the Distributed Research Experience for Undergraduates (DREU) summer research program at Clemson University in the Human Centered Computing Lab. During his summer research program, he worked in several projects such as Brain Computer Interface (BCI).

Luis has succeeded in the extra curricular activities as well. He is the Secretary of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Kean University Chapter (www.kean.edu/~acm). Also, he was a member for two years of the Club Colombia at Kean University. He has several hobbies, where one of them is photography. After taking the photography class he became more interesting on this field. As well, on his free time he likes to go backpacking or hiking with his friends. He is a nature and technology lover. For more professional information about me Click here or Contact me at: jimluis@kean.edu

Summer Projects

This summer I am going to work in three research projects in the Human-Centered Computer at Clemson University. I will be the student leader for the Active BCI project. In order to advance on my BCI knowledge, I have been reading some research papers and watching videos about how the brain works, how to analyze the brain waves and how to understand their pattern, meaning, shapes and behavior. Also, I found in one of the research papers the formula to measure the engagement level with the brain waves, which it is essential for these researches project. As well, I found the 3 types of arousal and how to identify them with the brain waves.

ACTIVE BCI

This project is still in the development stage. We are waiting for the approval of our project ideas. For now, we are doing literature review about previous BCI research studies with the emotiv device.

DRIVING SIMULATOR

I am going to be part of an on-going research project that investigate the effect of a driver's emotional state on driving performance in a simulator. I am going to be working on the BCI team which will measure the an analyze the emotional states of the participants.

EMOTION ELICITATION

The focus of the project is the "Electrodermal Activity" a measure of emotional arousal. I am going to be working on the BCI team, which will measure the an analyze the engagement level of the participants.

Fields of interest

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HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION (HCI)

HCI involves the study, planning, and design of the interaction between people (users) and computers. It is often regarded as the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, design and several other fields of study.

ROBOTICS

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots and computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing.

BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE (BCI)

BCI is a direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device. BCIs are often directed at assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions.

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Juan E. Gilbert is an IDEaS Professor and Chair of the Human-Centered Computing Division in the School of Computing at Clemson University (http://www.HumanCenteredComputing.org/). Dr. Gilbert has published more than 100 articles, given more than 150 invited or keynote talks and obtained more than $10 million dollars in research funding. He has graduated more than 50 graduate students. Currently, the HCC Lab supports more than 15 graduate and undergraduate students under Dr. Gilbert's direction.

Dr. Gilbert has research projects in Spoken Language Systems, Advanced Learning Technologies, User Interfaces (Usability), Ethnocomputing (Culturally Relevant Computing) and Databases and Data Mining. His research deals with innovative solutions to real world problems. For example, Dr. Gilbert is the creator of Applications Quest, http://www.ApplicationsQuest.com, a data mining software tool that addresses race-conscious admissions and school placement policies. He is also the inventor of Prime III, http://www.PrimeVotingSystem.com, an innovative secure, multimodal electronic voting system. Finally, he is the inventor of the African-American Distributed Multiple Learning Styles Systems, http://www.aadmlss.org, which is a culturally relevant advanced learning technology.

He is an ACM Distinguished Scientist and a Senior Member of the IEEE Computer Society. Dr. Gilbert was named one of the 50 most important African-Americans in Technology by eAccess Corp. He was also named a Speech Technology Luminary by Speech Technology Magazine and a national role model by Minority Access Inc. Dr. Gilbert is also a National Associate of the National Research Council of the National Academies. Recently, Dr. Gilbert was named a Master of Innovation by Black Enterprise Magazine, a Modern-Day Technology Leader by the Black Engineer of the Year Award Conference, the Pioneer of the Year by the National Society of Black Engineers and he received the Black Data Processing Association (BDPA) Epsilon Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution. In 2002, Dr. Gilbert was named one of the nation's top African-American Scholars by Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Dr. Gilbert also testified before the Congress on the Bipartisan Electronic Voting Reform Act of 2008 for his innovative work in electronic voting. In 2006, Dr. Gilbert was honored with a mural painting in New York City by City Year New York, a non-profit organization that unites a diverse group of 17 to 24 year-old young people for a year of full-time, rigorous community service, leadership development, and civic engagement. For more information about Dr. Gilbert Click Here.

Weekly Reports

First Week (May 27, 2012 - June 3, 2012)

I am very exited to be part of the Human Centered Computing Lab at Clemson University. During this week I attended to two meeting. The first one was on Monday to talk about the main project that Dr. Gilbert is working on and to meet the Ph. D students. The second meeting was with all the lab members (Ph. D students, REU and DREU students) to talk about the projects that are being conducted in the lab. We can choose which ones we like the most and have our top 3 of 6 projects. We had to choose to work in three projects but we had to decide which ones we are going to work on for the next Monday.

Second Week (June 4, 2012 - June 10, 2012 )

On Monday we had a meeting regarding the projects that we will work on. I am going to work on: Active BCI, Engagement Pedometer and Driving Simulator. I will be working with Dr. Gilbert, Dr. Daily and some Ph. D students on these three projects.

The Engagement Pedometer team had a meeting with Dr. Daily about the project. Before the meeting Dr. Daily sent use an email with some research papers about the project and previous work to have an idea and to get familiarize with the project. During the meeting she explained us more in detail what was the project about and what would be our tasks. I am going to work on the BCI part of the project. We are going to use the emotive device to analyze the level of engagement of the participants. I have some experience using the emotiv device which I used on my previous research. I am in charge of setting the device on the participant while he/she are watching a video and to read the brain activity which is represented with brain waves. So during this week I have been reading a lot about the brain how it works, the meaning of the brain waves and how to understand and interpret their patterns. In order to measure the level of engagement I found the formula, which I will be using to measure the engagement level among the participants.

Also, I had a meeting with the Active BCI Ph. D leader Marvin Andujar about the project. Marvin sent us some research papers in order to have more ideas to find a feasible project to conduct during the frame time that we have during this summer. So far we presented the ideas and he will have a meeting with Dr. Gilbert to discuss them and to choose the best one. Marvin has created a Google site which content videos, research papers and links about BCI. That way, when we start working on the project, we are going to be able to understand the terminology and to identify possible problems in our project that have happened on previous researches.

As well, the next Monday the Driving Simulator project members will meet via skype because some of the Ph. D students that are working on this project are conducting internship, so they are not able to be in the Lab. For now, the Ph. D students have shared some information and documentation about the project.

Third Week (June 11, 2012 - June 17, 2012 )

Since I will be working on the Brain Computer Interface (BCI) side of the project measuring engagement using the Emotiv EPOC device, I have been reading some research papers and watching videos about how the brain works, how to analyze the brain waves and how to understand their pattern, meaning, shapes and behavior. Also, I found in one of the research papers the formula to measure the engagement level with the brain waves, which is essential for this research. As well, I found that there are 3 types of arousal and how to identify them with the brain waves.

I am still reading more about the brain waves, in order to interpret the brain activity and how to use the engagement formula. Also, I have been reading about the EEG lab with the purpose to analyze the brain waves after the data have been once obtained from a participant.

I have been working with one of the Ph.D students on creating forms in Adobe Flex. I watched the one-week Adobe Flex training videos in order to create the form. Currently, I am working on the question validation.

These are some papers that I have been reading in order to understand more about the BCI and how it works:

  • Electroencephalography
  • Brain-Computer Interfaces, Virtual Reality, and Videogames
  • Noninvasive BCI Multiway Signal Processing Array Decompositions
  • Brain-Computer Interfaces Beyond Medical Applications
  • NeuroPhone Brain-Mobile Phone Interface using a Wireless EEG Headset
  • Mind-Controlled Videogames Become Reality
  • Pay Attention - Designing Adaptive Agents that Monitor and Improve User Engagement

Also, I have been watching a very useful Youtube channel which explains how the EEG works. Click here

I have been learning adobe Flex to create forms for the Emocional Elicitation project. I watched the one-week Flex training videos in order to create the form.

Fourth Week (June 18, 2012 - June 24, 2012 )

Last week I started working with the emotiv devices in the lab. I was testing the the devices and I found that they are not working properly. I talked to the Ph.D student in charge of the BCI about it and he already told Dr. Gilbert to order more. The possible problem is the bluetooth range of the devices. When I was testing the devices the control panel which is the software that makes the connection between the computer and the Emotive device was not reading accurate the signal from the device. which for the studies and other purposes it is imposible to rely on EEG readers. Also, I was recording some data in order to understand it, compare it and get more familiarized with it.

I am learning how to use a software called Eureqa formulize, which I am going to use to detect with a graph any change in the engagement level while performing a task. That way, I can identify in what point of the task (in our case the video) the engagement level has dropped or increased.

Fifth Week (June 25, 2012 – July 1, 2012 )

Last week I started working with the emotiv device. I was testing the devices and I found that they are not working properly. I talked to Marvin (The Ph. D student leader) about it and he told to Dr. Gilbert to order more. Also, I was recording some engagement data in order to understand it, compare it and get more familiarized with it. I am learning how to use a software called Eureqa formulize, which I am going to use to detect with a graph any change in the engagement level while performing a task. That way, I can identify in what point of the task (in our case the video) the engagement level has dropped or increased.

Also, I have been working on literature review for the Reading Engagement project, This research project aims to stimuli the e-book reading experience. I have been reading research papers about previos work on engaging reading and active readings

Sixth Week (July 2, 2012 – July 8, 2012)

I have been conducting pilot studies with Tania (Ph. D student working on the engagement pedometer project). We conducted the first test with the possible procedure that we will be following for the engagement pedometer studies. Also, I recorded some data that then was imported to Eureqa in order to analyze the level of engagement and its decrements or increments. Moreover, I have been recording my own brain waves in order to understand more about it and to get more familiarized with it. Furthermore, In order to interprete better the data imported from the emotiv software, I have been using Eureqa Formulize which is a scientific data mining software package that searches for mathematical patterns hidden in your data. With this programs I can find patterns of my data. As well, it helps to represent the level of engagements using a graph which is better to understand than just the numbers that I get from the Emotiv software.

I have been working on the Reader Engagement project. This research project aims to stimuli the e-book reading experience. The objective of this project is to engage the reader when the reading is not an interesting topic for the reader, but the reading is mandatory. The hypothesis is while a reader is reading something uninteresting; they do not capture as much information as they can, so by incrementing the level of engagement, the reader will be able to get more information. The procedure to follow will be when the participant level of engagement has dropped reaching the low engagement baseline, a video will pop out in order to help the participant level of engagement up until the participant engagement has reach a high level of engagement.

I found the first approach in order make a video pop out using the participant level of engagement. The interaction of three software; the Emotiv Control Panel (ECP), Mind Your OSCs and Max/Msp are going to make this project happen.

Seventh Week (July 9, 2012 - July 15, 2012 )

I was conducting pilot studies with Tania. As well, I discussed with Tania about the best environment to get more accurate data while recording engagement level from a participant. Because during the pilot studies, due to some movements of the participant the signal straight from the emotiv device was decreasing, which means that the data from the reading will decrease its accuracy. During the week I will be conducting more pilots studies to be prepare for the real studies. Also, During this week I have been working on the BCI script for the studies and writing the Reader Engagement paper.

Eighth Week (July 16, 2012 - July 22, 2012 )

Finally we the new BCI devices have arrived, I have been testing them and conducting pilot studies with Tania. Also, I am writing the paper and working on the application for the Active BCI project. This is the Abstract:

ABSTRACT

This is a work-in-progress project. The purpose of this research is to help increasing the readers’ level of engagement using a multimedia approach. Previous studies have shown that active reading engage readers to keep reading as an interactive way of learning. However, reading is a very personal experience for each reader due to readers’ understanding and different points of views. This project focuses in giving the reader the best reading experience even when the reading is not interesting or in this case boring. This project propose an interactive multimedia reading approach in order to increase the reading engagement level of the subjects using the Brain-Computer Interfaces as a measurement of the engagement level among the participants to trigger a video to pop out when readers' the engagement level has reached a low engagement.

Ninth Week (July 23, 2012 - July 29, 2012 )

During this week I have been working on my PowerPoint Presentation, collecting images related to my topic and looking for more information in order to have a good presentation. As well, I have been rehearsing for my presentation, which is going to be on July 31st. Also, I have been conducting pilot studies with Tania and working on the Reader Engagement project.

Tenth Week (July 30, 2012 - August 05, 2012 )

I finished the Reader Engagement research paper. Also, After the rehearsal I was very prepared for my presentation, which was on Tuesday July 31st, I was nervous but confident. I did a great job according to my advisors feedback. Also, I’ve been creating a manual of how to use the software implementation of my research, for the students that will be working on it during the fall semester. I would like to thank the DREU for the big opportunity that I was given. I have been learning a lot, I have met great people and I have been having so much fun during this summer. My interest to go to grad school has increased exponentially. After this 10 weeks exposure I am very sure that all the topics that I want to learn in order to build my career are not going to be just in my under grad studies. I need to go to grad school, in order to focus on my research of interest and go deeper. Grad school is the place where I want to go. Again THANK YOU SO MUCH!



FINAL PROJECT

VIEW PRESENTATION

VIEW RESEARCH PAPER