COSY Research Areas and Current Thesis/Praktikum-Topics

• Human Factors and Interaction Design of ICTs
• Usability, Usable Security, User Research, (Participatory) ideation and iterative prototyping
• Social Computing, Technology and the cultural domain - “Culture over IP”
• Ubiquitous and mobile HCI
• Computer Supported Cooperative World - Social Computing/Social Informatics, Cooperative Systems

• Internet of Things / Internet of People
• AAA - Authentication, Authorization, Accounting in IoT ecosystems
• Decentralized security mechanisms (blockchain, trust, transparency, privacy)
• (Computer) Networks --- design, operation, and use

Opera.Guru is an application suite to provide subtitles for live opera performances. (see www.opera.guru for details) The existing application contains a smartphone app (Android/iOS) and a web-based CMS. The task of this thesis is to develop a new web app in addition to the existing smartphone app. The goal of this extension is to use the Opera.Guru application suite for events other than opera and to access new user groups as well as new application scenarios. Basic programming skills and knowledge with mobile, web and server applications (Xamarin for Android/iOS apps, IIS) are recommended. The work for this thesis will include a user study to evaluate the web app.

See the project's website for further information and finished theses about opera.guru.

Im Rahmen der Entwicklung hin zu einer "Hochgeschwindigkeitsdemokratie" arbeiten wir an einer eParticipation-Plattform mit, die zur vermehrten Einbindung interessierter BürgerInnen in politische, insbesondere parlamentarische Prozesse führen soll. Das Spektrum reicht dabei von Ideenfindungsprozessen bis hin zur Kommentierung von Gesetzesvorlagen. Besonders interessant sind dabei Konzepte zur nachhaltigen Beteiligung und zur Überwindung der Schwelle zwischen physischer und Online-Diskussion.

Oulasvirta et al. (2005) https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1055101 showed that interaction during mobile web browsing occured in "interaction bursts" of 4 seconds. Although this research happened more than 10 years ago, today mobile interaction in the wild still happens in "bursts" due to contextual factors. In this work a study app will be developed which enables long time measurements of interaction bursts across app types (web browsing, chatting, etc.) and across times of day in the background of the participants' smartphones. This data will be gathered and analyzed in order to show patterns in interaction, e.g. different types of interaction "bursts".

"Develop mobile application that enables control, monitoring and analytics in the Smart-Home secured with ABAC".

Make use of the existing solution Smart-Home in COSY:Lab to develop novel mobile application and improve usability of the already integrated sensors and actuators - DHT, Philips Hue...

This thesis will have two main aspects:

• Security - evaluation and development of mechanisms for successful access control over information during system's lifetime
• HCI - design and development of the intuitive, easy-to-use application for Smart Home management

Testing and verification will be conducted in the COSY:Lab using existing equipment and development and verification environment.

This topic aims at utilizing a chatbot-type agent to interact with users of a Smart-Home environment. A conversation-based interaction/service design is to be designed to support Smart-Home-related tasks, such as (1) adding and removing IoT-devices to the Smart Home, (2) effective management of access and security policies (ABAC), (3) everyday usage.

Your task is to create a chat-bot interaction/service design with regard to usability-related qualities (simplicity, usable and understandable security features) and meaningful features, and make use of the existing Smart-Home setting of COSY:Lab to develop a chat-bot prototype for this context. A small user trial should then collect feedback and test for conceptual feasibility and usability.

This thesis is about interaction design and prototypical implementation of a chat-bot which supports a healthy lifestyle by incorporating different types of functionality into a holistic service composition. A prototype exists already, and your core job is to further extend the existing service composition by incorporating further APIs and related functionalities. Currently supported are APIs of Google Calendar (supporting scheduling physical activity and healthy eating), Fitbit, as well as APIs of recipe and work-out platforms. What else could be helpful? Be creative!

This thesis is about interaction design and prototypical implementation of a chat-bot which supports a healthy lifestyle. A prototype exists already, and your core job is to further develop the chat-bot personality and interaction design to incorporate S.M.A.R.T. goal setting (1) in order to support the user with finding meaningful fitness goals. To achieve this, you can make full use of the existing prototype feature-set (already integrated APIs: Google Calendar, Fitbit, Recipe API, Work-Out API) and extend it if necessary.

(1) https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/smart-goals.htm

This thesis is about interaction design and prototypical implementation of a chat-bot which supports a healthy lifestyle. A prototype exists already, and your core job is to further develop the chat-bot AI module in order to support a more natural, conversational interaction. To achieve this, you can make full use of the existing prototype feature-set (already integrated APIs: Google Calendar, Fitbit, Recipe API, Work-Out API) and extend it if necessary.

This thesis is about interaction design and further development of an existing Facebook Messenger Bot which supports newcoming students at the faculty of computer science. Your jobs comprise (1) the integration of location-oriented information and services as well as (2) functionality that supports socialization and collaboration, e.g. support for ad-hoc meetings, learning groups, ..

For this, small proof-of-concept-like prototypes already exist. Your core job is to incorporate the existing ideas into a single chat-bot/web platform in order to create a tool that can then be tested in the upcoming winter semester (which is, in the case of Bachelor students of SS18, of course out of scope of your thesis, just to mention the overall goal).

This thesis is about interaction design and prototyping of a community platform ("Smart Grätzel") that incorporates IoT devices. This thesis comprises (1) defining a social software concept that supports a given community by incorporating software (e.g. a web-platform, a chat-bot) and IoT devices (e.g sensors or displays), (2) creating a prototype, (3) conducting a small user trial to explore/validate meaning from a user perspective.

This topic is about personalized services. With interfaces getting more and more "smart", possibilities for adaptive functionality and adaptive interaction concepts widen, taking into account the users' preferences, current state or overall personality. This points to the question: Can adapting to situative states and/or personal attributes of a user improve the user experience, usability and overall "successful" usage of a software?

This thesis comprises (1) the identification of a suitable setting for a comparative study (e.g. see Grätzelbot topics, Healthy-Living-Bot topics, or your own topic), (2) the enhancement of the respective user-interface to support adaptive behavior/interaction design, (3) the realization of a comparative usability/user experience study.

Note: This topic is only available as P1/P2 or Master's Thesis.

This topic is about computer-supported community building. Social networks emanate from purposeful social mingling and interaction and can bring about significant positive social change, a process that can be specifically supported and nurtured, e.g. as described by Plastrik and Taylor (1). While the authors have created their framework before there were social networks like Facebook on the Internet, it seems clear that today's technology can add a lot to this effort.

This thesis is about (1) creating a social software concept that supports the building of ad-hoc social communities, following Plastrik and Taylors approach, and investigating how the specific network goals defined by them can be supported by ICT, (2) prototyping this concept and (3) conducting a small user trial to test for conceptual feasibility.

(1) https://networkimpact.org/downloads/NetGainsHandbookVersion1.pdf

Note: This topic is only available as P1/P2 or Master's Thesis.

While social networks are very popular among younger people, none of them have been designed from their perspective, putting them first. This topic is about designing a social network from the perspective of youth/young persons. The thesis comprises (1) the participatory design of a social network concept that is based in the interests, wishes and needs of young persons, (2) the prototypical realization of this concept, (3) conducting a small user trial to validate the prototype.

Note: This topic is only available as P1/P2 or Master's Thesis.

This thesis is about designing and creating a smart phone application that supports activities undertaken by the scouts, a worldwide youth movement. The functionality can focus around different areas: (1) An outdoor, location-based gaming application, (2) a social diary aimed at collecting experiences, (3) an application that supports connecting scouts worldwide, ..

The thesis comprises (1) the design of an application concept (2) the prototypical realization of this concept, (3) conducting a small user trial with members of the scout movement to validate the prototype.

Note: This topic is only available as P1/P2 or Master's Thesis.

"Authorize your actions in Smart Home not only using your identity but also your previous behavior and current system's environment"

Bring ABAC and Blockchain together! While ABAC stores information about users' identity and provides fine-granular access-control, blockchain can be used to as a trusted storage for event-based tracking of the system's usage. Use case - a child can't turn on the light in the living room in the night without the presence of the parent in the same room.

In this thesis an existing implementation of the ABAC for Smart-Home based on XACML will be extended and adapted to make use of blockchain and verifying access-rights based on two source of information - users' credentials and latest information in the blockchain, depending on the definition of the access policy.

"Define event-based environment for runtime configuration of the Smart-Home and make Smart-Home smarter"

Make use of the collected data from the sensors in the Smart-Home and define events that could be of interest to define optimal behavior of the Smart-Home appliances.

Use defined events and bind them with script language(JavaScript for example) to trigger proper actions and optimise usage of the Smart-Home sensors( disable temperature readings if there isn't any user present in the system).

This solution will be integrated with already existing Smart-Home management framework, present on COSY:Lab.

"Manage Access Control policies based on presence of users in the Smart-Home"

Integrate some of the existing technologies for localization and presence detection(RDIF, BLE) with ABAC-enabled Smart-Home management system.

Goal of this thesis is to enable definition and validation of the access policies in Smart-Home that required users' presence events as input and allow/forbid particular actions in Smart-Home based on those events.

This solution will be integrated with already existing Smart-Home management framework, present on COSY:Lab.

"Provide self-sovereign identity to the users and devices in a Smart-Home"

Implement blockchain-based storage(decentralized PKI) and accompanying clients for successful identity management based on X.509 certificates.

Goals of this thesis is to enable authentication of the entities in the Smart-Home system using certificates and public keys, while marking authentication using passwords as obsolete.

This solution will be integrated with already existing Smart-Home management framework, present on COSY:Lab.

Related information sources :

http://www.weboftrust.info/

https://sovrin.org/

https://www.uport.me/

Goal of this thesis is implementation of the light-weight solution for resource contrained devices based on embedded Linux OS that supports handling of public and private keys.

This solution should incorporate key exchange protocol between Arduion-based devices and central manager for keys handling.

Special attention should be given to the storing of the keys in a trusted and secure manner, using concepts similar to TPM.

Successful implementation of this thesis will lead to the mutual authentication of the devices and will be integrated in the COSY Smart Home environment.

Excitation with exponentially-swept sines allows for measurements of transfer functions of weakly nonlinear, approximately time-invariant systems. Implement a framework, e.g. in Octave (MATLAB) or NumPy, that streamlines generating the required sweeps, deconvolutions etc., and demonstrate its applicability in a practical study (e.g. room acoustics).

www.nvo.com/winmls/nss-folder/electro1acoustics/Measuring%20impulse%20resp%20and%20distortion%20with%20swept%20sine%201341AES00.pdf

web.uvic.ca/~timperry/ELEC499SurroundSoundImpulseResponse/Elec499-SurroundSoundIR-PreREVA.pdf

This project proposes to develop and investigate methods that allow for simple, repeatable calibration of smartphone sensors using elementary physics and household items. A method should thus require little or no special hardware, apart from what is typically available on/in one's desk, drawers, and kitchen provide intrinsic (or readily procurable) means for comparison measurements, be repeatable easily so that multiple measurements can be taken, facilitating variations of parameters or devices, and statistical analysis of the results. Needless to say, the device under test should not be damaged by an experiment. Potential experiment techniques include Swings, pendulums with controllable physical dimensions (and thus oscillation periods) Springs Free fall, throwing; sliding on inclined planes Rolling (e.g. inside of a can) Comparison measurements with one device attached to another More notes: https://github.com/SensibilityTestbed/sensibility-testbed/issues/33

Recordings of network traffic play an important role in studying the network behavior of nodes, applications, and users. Unfortunately, these traces also contain quasi-personally identifiable information (PII) which makes sharing or publishing traces problematic. Develop a tool or extend existing ones (libpcap, Wireshark) to anonymize traces to various degrees. For this, identify types of PII found in traces, and evaluate methods to pseudonymize or otherwise scrub the records.

Note: This project is a great start into the world of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS)!