Skills

SKILLS Conference 2011 in Montpellier

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Dear Colleague,

The EuroMov center at Montpellier-1 University in the south of France organizes a special conference in December 2011.

SKILLS is the international conference of the SKILLS European Project (IST, Multimodal Interfaces, 2007-2011). It addresses fundamental and translational issues related to the acquisition, storage, maintenance and transfer of human skills using multimodal technologies such as virtual and augmented realities, human-machine interfaces, interaction design, and robotic systems. SKILLS aims at introducing a novel approach to technology-assisted skill acquisition or rehabilitation based on enactive and direct interaction between learner and technology. Perception-action and cognitive accelerators embedded in specific training protocols are used at various stages of learning in several (real) trainee – (virtual) trainer situations.
In addition to keynote lectures, regular papers and posters, a large portion of the conference will be devoted to the presentation of hands-on demos illustrating the enactive approach to skill acquisition and transfer, not limited to but including the three following domains: Sport & Entertainement, Surgery & Rehabilitation, Industry & Manufacturing.

The two keynote speakers are J.A. Scott Kelso (Florida Atlantic University, FL, USA) and Stefan Schaal (University of Southern California, CA, USA).

The conference will be held at the CORUM International Convention Center, December 15-16, 2011, in the beautiful city of Montpellier in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.

Deadline for paper submission is June 15, 2011.

Detailed information about the SKILLS conference (preliminary program, flyers and posters, submission, registration, accommodation, etc...) can be found at www.euromov.eu/skills

Detailed information about the SKILLS european project can be found at www.skills-ip.eu

Detailed information about the EuroMov center an be found at www.euromov.eu

We look forward to seeing you in Montpellier next year !

Benoit Bardy (General Chair), Julien Lagarde (Program Chair), Denis Mottet (Demos Chair)

SKILLS Summer School 2011: Skill learning and Virtual Environments

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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION IN SKILLS SUMMER SCHOOL 2011 - "SKILL LEARNING AND VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS"

Organizers: Prof. Massimo Bergamasco (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna) Prof. Benoît Bardy (Université Montpellier 1) Dr. Teresa Gutierrez and Dr. Ana Rosa Carrillo (Fundación Tecnalia)

Place and Date: Castle of Gargonza (Arezzo, Italy) from 25th July 2011 to 30th July 2011

Funded by EC FP6 SKILLS Integrated Project

SYNOPSIS
The SKILLS Project (“Multimodal Interfaces for capturing and transfer of skill ”) is funded under the 6th EC Framework Programme and is aimed at exploiting Virtual Environments and robotics technologies for capturing, storing and rendering human skills in different application domains (Sport & Entertainment, Surgery and Rehabilitation, Industrial Maintenance and Robot Programming). See http://www.skills-ip.eu/ for more info.
Several research topics in the field of motor learning, skill analysis and skill representation have been addressed in the SKILLS Project. A novel approach to the digital representation of skill has been developed and applied to specific case-studies implemented in nine physical demonstrators. Training protocols based on VE and haptics systems have been defined and evaluated on the demonstrators. The assessment of the transfer of skill in the different domains by the exploitation of VE technologies has been evaluated.
The knowledge acquired in the framework of the SKILLS Project can now be disseminated to a larger research audience than the internal SKILLS research community. The SKILLS Summer School 2011 “Skill learning and Virtual Environments” represents a first event for spreading the research results to young researchers and stimulating scientific debate on state-of-the-art topics on skill learning from a pure scientific perspective.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

The attendance to the SKILLS Summer School is open to application for European and worldwide PhD students working in the fields of research related to skill learning. PhD students interested in attendance should provide a CV and a description of their research project in the form of an abstract to be later extended as a poster that will be presented during the Summer School.
Submissions of applications should be made online through the Summer School website
http://www.skills-ip.eu/summerschool2011

DATES

30th May 2011 - Deadline for Application Submission
20th June 2011 - Notification
25th July 2011 - Summer School Starts
30th July 2011 - Summer School Ends

More information can be found at http://www.skills-ip.eu/summerschool2011
For any inquiry, please contact the SKILLS Management Team at skills.summerschool@skills-ip.eu

Medicine Meets Virtual Reality - Italy 2010 - SKILLS Special Session

2010-11-16T00:00:00+01:00

The analysis of synergies between Virtual Reality and Medicine is the objective of this workshop, through the meeting of scientists, engineers and medical doctors, with the aim of providing an overview of the advanced nowadays technologies, on their potential and real efficacy through the presentation of some experimental and clinical applications.
The event will include a session with the oral presentation of contributions, a poster session and a demo session with hands-on demos to allow the participants to directly experience working demos during the workshop.

Main themes
The main themes of the workshop, for which a call for contributions is solicited, deal with the methodological and applied aspect of Virtual Realty in Medicine and Surgery that include, but are not limited to:

o Virtual patients
o Simulation in
o Surgery
o medicine
o rehabilitation
o emergency
o new applications
o training and planning systems
o Technologies for medical simulation:
o modelling
o haptic interfaces
o visual rendering systems
o new modalities of interaction
o Augmented reality
o Design and evaluation of simulators

A special session within the framework of the SKILLS project will be organized, dealing with the topics of learning and transferring skills in the area of medicine and surgery by new VR and robotic technologies. Contributions from SKILLS consortium partners are very welcome and solicited.

Please contact directly Antonio Frisoli at a.frisoli@sssup.it or Carlo Alberto Avizzano at carlo@sssup.it if you are willing to submit your contribution within the SKILLS special session.

You can find the Call for Paper here .

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Movement Science, Psychology or Neuroscience

2010-02-15T00:00:00+01:00

Montpellier, France

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Movement Science, Psychology or Neuroscience.

The University of Montpellier I (France) is seeking applicants for a post doctoral fellowship to work on a research project investigating social motor coordination in mental illness and robot design. The pluridisciplinary project based on a Agence Nationale De La Recherche grant is in collaboration with researchers at the University Montpellier, University of the Mediterranean, University-Hospital of Montpellier (partners in south of France) and the College of the Holy Cross (partner in the USA). The postdoctoral fellow will be involved in experiments investigating interpersonal limb and postural coordination in healthy and in mentally ill patients (schizophrenics and social phobics) as well as motor coordination between humans and robots. The planned experiments will also investigate the perceptual constraints on social coordination using eye trackers as well as its concomitant brain mechanisms using neuroimagery methods.

Applicants who have earned a Ph.D. in Movement Science, Psychology or Neuroscience should have a background in experimental methods and time-series analyses as well as an expertise in Matlab programming. Familiarity with quantitative modeling techniques and nonlinear dynamic time series analyses is also desirable. The 12 months position, which is renewable once, will begin in September/October 2010.

Please send a curriculum vita with a cover letter and two letters of recommendation before May 31, 2010 to Dr. Ludovic Marin,
Université Montpellier 1,
Motor Efficiency and Deficiency Laboratory,
700 Avenue du Pic Saint Loup,
34090 Montpellier France
ludovic.marin@univ-montp1.fr

SKILLS 09 International Conference - Enaction on skills

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The International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces for Skills Transfer, promoted by the European SKILLS Integrated Project, will be held in Bilbao (Spain) on 15th-16th December, 2009.

SKILLS09 is a major International Conference and a clear opportunity for researchers in the field of multimodal interfaces to capture, store and transfer human skills. These interfaces, based on Enactive Interfaces and Systems, are a new generation of human-computer interfaces that are based on the concept of Enactive Knowledge, that is the knowledge acquired by doing. This learning process is also referred to as enacting or enaction in transferring skills. These new interfaces make old applications more intelligent and more responsive, and create new applications. The introduction of this concept in Human and Computer Interfaces (HCI) has created a multidisciplinary research community capable of integrating theoretical models with interaction paradigms and with advanced technologies such as visualization systems, haptics and spatial audio.

This conference will present and discuss recent developments in the application of the concept of Enaction for the transfer of manual human skills.Please visit the Conference website at http://www.ceit.es/skills2009 for more information.

A Call for Papers and Hands-on Demos has been launched and you can find all the related details here.

Papers are welcome in all topics related to skills conceptualization and transfer processes, from skill capturing to skill rendering and assessment.

Conference Progress in Motor Control VII (Marseille, France, 23-25 July 2009)

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Progress in Motor Control: The 7th edition of this international conference will be held in Marseille (FRANCE) from July 23-25, 2009. This conference is organized under the auspices of the International Society of Motor Control with the goal to promote basic and applied research in the field of movement control in biological and artificial systems.

For more information go to: www.pmc2009.fr

Joint PRESENCCIA and SKILLS PhD Symposium: ABSTRACT DEADLINE IS EXTENDED UNTIL APRIL 13, 2009

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ABSTRACT DEADLINE IS EXTENDED UNTIL APRIL 13, 2009

A Joint PRESENCCIA and SKILLS PhD Symposium will be held in Pisa on May 26-27, 2009. The symposium will be jointly held with the 4th XVR Workshop, an event dedicated to VR programming organized every year by PERCRO Laboratory at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libertà 33 - Pisa, Italy.

PRESENCCIA and SKILLS are two integrated projects that both aim to advance Virtual Reality technology. These projects are highly interdisciplinary encompassing, among others, computer cience, robotics, engineering, interaction design, cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology nd philosophy. All these fields, however diverse their interests, come together in the goal of ntegrating human interaction in mixed and virtual reality environments in order to enhance the user’s experience and enabling him to act and interact in a natural and familiar way by means of nactive paradigms.
The most interesting, challenging and useful digital environments are social, focussing on supporting (group) interaction between real people and other remote people or real people and virtual people. The aim is to understand, track and give appropriate feedback in verbal, non-verbal and implicit interactions while also making digital content more believable and intelligent.
Likewise, a number of methods need to be developed allowing users of virtual environments to not only perform actions effectively in a variety of different scenarios but also be able to choose from a repertoire of suitable actions. This requires adequate digital representations of human skills and also techniques to capture, interpret and deliver them by means of multimodal interfaces, robotics and virtual environments within enactive interaction paradigms.
At the low-level end of the spectrum we also aim to understand the neural basis of presence and its response. Its enhancement and its application is the fundamental object of study from any different points of view, and including visual, haptic and auditory modalities.

Call for Contributions
This PhD symposium invites student proposals for oral presentations and posters relating to any of the areas mentioned above. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words for oral presentations and 250 words for posters, respectively.
Any PhD or postgraduate student carrying out research activities in the above topics is encouraged to participate.

Important Dates
Abstract deadline: April 13, 2009
Acceptance notification: April 16, 2009
Symposium Dates: 26-27 May 2009

Paper Submission and Participation
Participation to the Workshop is free and open to everyone. If you would like to submit an abstract or receive more information, you can get in touch with the organisers Christoph Groenegress (Event Lab/UB) and Paolo Tripicchio (PERCRO) at the following e-mail address: phdsymposium@sssup.it.

Keynote Speakers

Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Psychology Department, Università di Roma "La Sapienza” and IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Roma (http://w3.uniroma1.it/aglioti/).

Jan Peters, Dept. Empirical Inference ,Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics,
Tuebingen, Germany (http://www-clmc.usc.edu/~jrpeters/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage ).

For further info, please visit the Symposium Website.

The SKILLS Integrated Project - A New Approach to the Acquisition and Transfer of Skill

1970-01-01T00:59:59+01:00

"SKILLS Scientific Conference 2008"

The SKILLS Integrated Project
A New Approach to the Acquisition and Transfer of Skill

December 2nd, 2008

Augsburg Convention Center
Augsburg, Germany

The Scientific Conference on the SKILLS Integrated Project aims at fostering the research, the industrial development and the social involvement on technologies and systems for the acquisition, modelling and transfer of human skills. The Conference will present and discuss recent developments on basic research, methods for modelling skills, advances in capturing and rendering technologies, and industrial applications.

The Scientific Conference, starting from the definition of a unified approach to the theoretical challenges on skill transfer and moving through sub-skills analysis, scenarios definitions and demonstrator design, will address in a coherent way all the scientific results obtained during the second year of the Project.

In addition to Scientific presentation, hands-on demos and poster sessions will allow the external public to join and stimulate discussion among research and industrial communities. The showroom will allow the audience to get in touch with applied technologies for skill research, and the ongoing development applications. The demonstration session is organized by the SKILLS Consortium that includes highly qualified institutions and industries in the field of multimodal interfaces.

A detailed program of the initiative and an online registration to adequately support logistic and catering setup is welcome and can be done at the following address:

http://www.skills-ip.eu/events/scientificconference2008/

The Scientific Conference is fully supported by the European Community under the Framework of FP6 and by the SKILLS Consortium. This event is organized by KUKA Industrial Robots GmbH and DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics. The participation is free.

SKILLS-IP Consortium is composed by:
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna - Laboratorio PERCRO (IT). Fraunhofer Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung (DE). Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique - Laboratoire d'Intégration des Systèmes et des Technologies (FR). UM1 - University Montpellier-1 (FR). DLR - Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics (DE). LABEIN (ES). CEIT (ES). Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (IL). University of Tampere (FI). QUB - Queen's University Belfast (UK). Aalborg University (DK). HAPTION (FR). KUKA Roboter GmbH (DE). OMG plc, (UK). Simonazzi S.p.A. (IT).

www.skills-ip.eu www.kuka.com www.robotic.dlr.de

5th Enactive International Conference ENACTIVE 2008 (Pisa, Italy 19-21 November 2008) -1st Call for Participation

1970-01-01T00:59:59+01:00

ENACTIVE08: 1st Call for Participation

Conference: Pisa, Italy 19-21 November 2008

http://www.enactive2008.org/

Dear all, we would like to invite you to participate in the 5th Enactive
International Conference (ENACTIVE 2008).

ENACTIVE08 is a major international conference and an important
meeting occasion for researchers in the field of Enactive Interfaces.
Enactive Interfaces and Systems are a new generation of human-computer
interfaces that are based on the concept of Enactive knowledge, that is the
knowledge acquired by doing. These new interfaces allow to make old applications
more intelligent and responsive and to create new kinds of applications.
The introduction of this concept in HCI has created a multidisciplinary research
community capable of integrating theoretical model with interaction paradigms
and advanced technologies like visualization systems, haptics and spatialized audio.

The program committee now kindly invites researchers, innovators and theorists
to submit papers and posters in all the topics related to Enactive Interfaces,
Interaction and Systems, including but not limited to the following areas:

Technology
Human Computer Interaction
Multimodal and Enactive interfaces
Real Time reactive and interactive architectures
Technology for multisensory-motor interactions
Technology for haptic interfaces
Technology for human-computer interfaces

Human action and perception
Control laws and sensorimotor contingencies
Kinaesthetic model of the user
Motor control of perception
Perceptual control of movements
Psychophysics of multisensory-motor interaction
Sensory substitution and enaction

Applications
Creativity, Art and Enaction
E-teaching and e-learning
Industrial design, simulation and virtual prototyping
Special users and uses
Sport and Entertainment
Surgical simulation and Telemedicine

Fundamental issues
Epistemology, Ontology and Philosophical issues
Theories of Enaction
Ecological and embodied cognition

The technical program of the conference will be single-track with oral presentation
of papers (6 pages) selected through a peer-review process.

Besides the publication of papers and posters in the Proceedings of the conference
with an ISBN number, a selection of papers will be published in a special issue
of a peer-review journal in the field of multimodal human computer interfaces.

The main conference takes place the 20-21 November while tutorials and
hands-on demos are also foreseen on the 19th November.

Important dates
------------------
* June 10, 2008 : Proposals for organized/special sessions
* July 4, 2008 - 12.00 pm PST: Submission of full-length papers
* September 17, 2008 : Notification to authors
* October 1, 2008: Proposals for tutorials/hands-on demos
* October 7, 2008 : Final version of papers
------------------

General Chairs
Emanuele Ruffaldi, PERCRO Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy
Marco Fontana, PERCRO Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy

Program Co-Chairs
Marcelo Wanderley, McGill University, Canada
Emilio Sanchez, CEIT, Spain
Olivier Gapenne, UTC, France
Elena Pasquinelli, COMPAS, France
Gualtiero Volpe, DIST, Italy
Franco Tecchia, PERCRO Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy

Scientific Committee
Massimo Bergamasco, PERCRO Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy
Benoit Bardy, University of Montpelier 1, France
Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann, MIRALAB University of Geneve, Switzerland
Roberto Casati, Institut NICOD, France
Marcelo Wanderley, McGill University, Canada
Carlo Alberto Avizzano, PERCRO Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy
Antonio Frisoli, PERCRO Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy
Sile O'Modrian, Queen University of Belfast, Ireland
Yasuyoshi Yokokohji, Kyoto University, Japan

Award Chairs
Benoit Bardy, University of Montpelier 1, France
Aude Billard, EPFL, Switzerland
Hisato Kobayashi, Hosei University, Japan

Please direct any inquiries to info@enactive2008.org

IEEE RO-MAN 2008 Workshop on Skills Transfer and Capture (August 1, 2008 - Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Munich, Germany)

1970-01-01T00:59:59+01:00

Abstract

Multimodal Skills Capture and Transfer is a challenging topic of research that is aimed to analyze and transfer the skilled component of human activities with the use of multimodal technologies. This field requires the contribution of researches from neuroscience, psychophysics, capturing technologies and rendering technologies. It ranges from the multimodal capture of a human task, the analysis of the task in terms of skills, to the rendering of the skill using human modalities, e.g. through haptic interfaces and advanced visualization techniques. At the same time the data acquired in real time is processed by machine learning algorithms for the identification of performance, comparing the user with an existing database of skilled user, producing as an outcome the required stimuli for improving the user task.

Intended Audience

Researchers who want to get up to speed with the major tools for indexing and processing large motion-capture databases. Also practitioners who want a concise, intuitive overview of the state of the art.

Organizers

Carsten Preusche,DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics ,Wessling, Germany
Carlo A. Avizzano, PERCRO, Scuola Superiore S.Anna, Pisa, Italy
Emanuele Ruffaldi, PERCRO, Scuola Superiore S.Anna, Pisa, Italy

Carsten Preusche is research scientist at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) since 1999. He is head of the Telerobotics and Telepresence Group and participates in several national and international research projects. Up to now he authored or co-authored more than 40 scientific papers in the field of telerobotics, haptic human system interfaces, haptic rendering, bilateral control and space robotics. Carsten Preusche is scientific and administrative responsible of the SKILLS IP on behalf of DLR. He currently represents the Demonstration Activities, of wich he is coordinating the Industry and Maintenance WP, within the steering committee of the IP.

Carlo Alberto Avizzano is Assistant Professor of Mechatronics at University of Pisa and Researcher on Control and Automation at SSSA since 2003. Carlo Alberto Avizzano is currently the scientific responsible of research at PERCRO (PERCeptual RObotics) Laboratory of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa - Italy, directed by prof. Massimo Bergamasco. At present, he has authored. co-authored more than 70 scientific papers in the field of haptics, control, robotics and virtual reality. Carlo Alberto Avizzano is the technical responsible of the SKILLS IP for PERCRO, in which is coordinating the research on the digital encoding of Skills and the demonstration activities. http://www.percro.org/

Emanuele Ruffaldi is Researcher at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna,Pisa in Applied Mechanics in which he obtained his PhD in 2006 discussing a thesis on perceptually inspired Haptic Algorithms. He is member of the research division VRTS "Virtual Reality & Telerobotic Systems" at PERCRO (PERCeptual RObotics) Laboratory of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, directed by prof. Massimo Bergamasco. Emanuele has been the author of more than 15 papers published on International Journals and proceedings of scientific workshops. The main project in which he is currently involved is the SKILLS IP, aimed to capture and transfer human skills. His research interests are in the field of haptics, human gesture analysis and system integration for virtual reality applications. He is currently involved in the design of the Multimodal Database System for the management of Skills. http://www.teslacore.it/

Funding

We thank the EU-funded SKILLS (FP6-IST-2005-035005-IP) for support.

RSS 2008 Tutorial Skills Capture and Transfer (June 28, 2008, Zurich, Switzerland)

2008-06-16T23:00:00+01:00

Abstract

Multimodal systems integrate Robotic devices with other Virtual and Mixed Environment technologies to interact with Human beings. The proposed tutorial on Skills Capture and Transfer aims at providing analyze and transfer the skilled component of human activities with the use of multimodal technologies. This topic ranges from the multimodal capture of a human task? to the rendering of the skill using haptic interfaces and advanced visualization techniques. At the same time the data acquired in real time is processed by machine learning algorithms for the identification of performance, comparing the user with an existing database of skilled user, producing as an outcome the required stimuli for improving the user task. This tutorial introduces to the topic by presenting the state of the art in multimodal capturing technologies, the techniques for the analysis based on machine learning (dimensional reduction, HMM and Neural Networks) and the descriptors for the evaluation of a skilled performance. The practical part of the tutorial is supported by examples in MATLAB, Simulink and additional Python libraries.

Intended Audience

Organizers

Carlo A. Avizzano, PERCRO, Scuola Superiore S.Anna, Pisa, Italy
Emanuele Ruffaldi, PERCRO, Scuola Superiore S.Anna, Pisa, Italy

Emanuele Ruffaldi is Assistant Professor at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna,Pisa in Applied Mechanics in which he obtained his PhD in 2006 discussing a thesis on perceptually inspired Haptic Algorithms. He is member of the research division VRTS "Virtual Reality & Telerobotic Systems" at PERCRO (PERCeptual RObotics) Laboratory of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, directed by prof. Massimo Bergamasco. Emanuele has been the author of more than 15 papers published on International Journals and proceedings of scientific workshops. The main project in which he is currently involved is the SKILLS IP, aimed to capture and transfer human skills. His research interests are in the field of haptics, human gesture analysis and system integration for virtual reality applications. He is currently involved in the design of the Multimodal Database System for the management of Skills. http://www.teslacore.it/

Speakers

Luis Unzueta Irurtia is a researcher of CEIT in Applied Mechanics and a PhD Student of Tecnun, University of Navarra. Luis has been the author of more than 10 papers published on International Journals and proceedings in scientific workshops. The main project in which he is currently involved is the SKILLS IP, aimed to capture and transfer human skills. His research interests are in the field of markerless human full-body motion capture, inverse kinematics and human action identification for human-machine interaction.

Funding

We thank the EU-funded SKILLS (FP6-IST-2005-035005-IP) for support.

3rd Annual XVR Workshop - Virtual Environments and Brain Computer Interfaces

2008-04-29T23:00:00+01:00

Coming Workshop in Pisa (May 14-15, 2008)

The XVR Workshop is a free and informal meeting that takes place every year at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. It is an event dedicated to the technical aspects of Virtual Reality programming and related issues. This year the focus is on the combination of Virtual Reality and physiological measures including Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). The event will be over two days: a first day of scientific presentations discussing the potential of various new or existing technology in the context of Virtual Environments research, and a second technical day with programming tutorials showing how to place things together from a practical, software and hardware oriented point of view.

The event is jointly supported by the EU IP Projects SKILLS and PRESENCCIA, and it will be the perfect occasion to meet researchers from related field of research.

Please note that this is a free event, but you still need to register. You will find the registration form, as well as travel and hotel information at this address:

http://www.percro.org/index.php?pageId=XVRWorkshopProgrammingVR

See you in Pisa!

POST-DOC POSITION IN MOVEMENT SCIENCE IN MONTPELLIER, FRANCE

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Place: Montpellier-1 University, France
Laboratory: Movement Efficiency and Deficiency (MED)
Job Title: Capturing, storing, and transferring human skills
Date Posted: January 7, 2008
Application Deadline: Open Until Filled

Job Description

The Movement Efficiency and Deficiency (EDM) Laboratory of Montpellier-1 University (UM1) anticipates hiring one postdoctoral fellow for a period of one to two years, with a starting date of March 2008. The postdoctoral fellow will be involved in a five-year European Integrated project (FP6, 2006-2010, SKILLS) focusing on the development of multimodal interfaces for the acquisition and transfer of skills with applications to sport & entertainment, surgery & rehabilitation, and industry.

The research team at UM1- EDM includes a multidisciplinary group of researchers interested in the study of complex skill acquisition and transfer, non linear coordination dynamics, perception and action, human-machine interfaces, and motor control in general. Our laboratory is equipped with state of the art motion capture system (Vicon-Nexus system with 8 cameras, integrated force platforms), plus a large range of biometric capturing devices (EMG, gaz exchanges, isokinetic devices). In the SKILLS project, the UM1-EDM group is leading the perception-action fundamental research efforts, including skill modelling, task analysis and development of a behavioral test battery to evaluate learning and expertise components. The group is also leading the Sport & Entertainment module with applications in juggling and rowing. Key EDM personnel involved in the SKILLS project are: Benoît Bardy, Denis Mottet, Julien Lagarde, Sofiane Ramdani, Ludovic Marin.

This position is open to candidates who have recently earned their Ph.D. in any area of Movement Science, Psychology, Neuroscience, or Computer Science. Salary will be competitive. We look for candidates whose capabilities complement the current expertise of the project members. Candidates whose training and interest is in the following areas will be considered: 1) Neuroscience and Psychology: Multisensory perception, Psychophysics; 2) Movement Science: Motor control, coordination, perception-action, 3) Computer sciences: Digital representation, real time virtual reality, syntax and data format for storage.

The ideal candidate's experience and training combines two or more of these areas, although substantial expertise and achievements in one of the areas are also valued. A background in quantitative modelling techniques is a decisive advantage. Familiarity with experimental methods and nonlinear time series analyses, as well as motion capture, is also an advantage. Programming skills are required (Matlab, or C, or equivalent).

Applicants should submit a curriculum vita, names, addresses and e-mails of two referents, and a cover letter describing their research interests.

Review of applications will commence on February 1, 2008 and will continue until the position is filled.

Applications should be sent to:

Pr. Benoît Bardy
The SKILLS project
Movement Efficiency and Deficiency Laboratory
Montpellier - 1 University
700 Avenue du Pic Saint Loup
34090 Montpellier, France

For any further information please contact:
Pr. Denis Mottet at denis.mottet@univ-montp1.fr
Dr. Julien Lagarde at julien.lagarde@univ-montp1.fr

For further information about the SKILLS project, please visit:
www.skills-ip.eu

Postdoc Position Open at Scuola Superiore S.Anna

2008-01-06T00:00:00+01:00

The Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna is seeking for qualified experts on
Machine learning and Vision based human motion capture. Two Postdoctoral
position have been opened:

1) Postdoc in Machine Learning
The goal of this research activity is to develop models and algorithms
for the analysis of human skills based on the multimodal capturing of human
movements and biometrics signals.

*Job Description*
The research will take place inside the European SKILLS Integrated
Project for the skills capture and transfer addressing application
fields such as medical, entertainment, sport and industry.

*Duration* 24 months
*Requirements:*
Candidates should have an PhD diploma in one of the following fields:
physics, mathematics, electrical engineering or related field.
Required are strong mathematical and programming skills as well as the
ability to communicate and work well in a team.

2) Postdoc in Context-aware Human Motion and Computer Vision Analysis
The goal of this research activity is to improve the current techniques
for human motion and computer vision analysis when applied in specific
application areas involving human robot interaction and multi user
interaction.

*Job Description*
The research will take place inside the European SKILLS Integrated
Project for the skills capture and transfer addressing application
fields such as medical, entertainment, sport and industry.

*Duration* 24 months

*Requirements:*
Candidates should have an PhD diploma in one of the following fields:
physics, mathematics, electrical engineering or related field.
Required are strong mathematical and programming skills as well as the
ability to communicate and work well in a team.

Applicants may check the descriptions at the two following links.

http://www.sssup.it/context_elenco.jsp?ID_LINK=64&area=48&page=5
http://www.sssup.it/context_elenco.jsp?ID_LINK=64&area=48&page=4

A common deadline has been set for the 30th of January 2008.

The appointments will be in the PERCRO laboratory of Scuola Superiore
Sant'Anna (Pisa, Italy). Any further information can be requested at the
following email: skills.coordinator@skills-ip.eu

1st Periodic Review Meeting

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

The 1st Periodic EC Review of the SKILLS Project will take place in Pisa at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna on December 17-19, 2007. The event will take place in conjunction with 1st International Workshop on MultiModal Interfaces for the Transfer of Human Skills: "Beyond Movement".

You can find all the details on the Registration page at the following link:

http://www.skills-ip.eu/registration2007/

Looking forward to seeing you in Pisa,

Massimo Bergamasco

Coordinator of the SKILLS IP

1st SKILLS General Meeting (Oxford, October 23-26, 2007)

2007-07-05T23:00:00+01:00

The 1st SKILLS Integrated Project General Meeting will take place in Oxford on October 23 – 26, 2007
Logistics information and other practical details to reach the meeting venue are available here on the SKILLS website.
You will find a preliminary session schedule and a brief overview of the specific scope and objectives of the meeting here on the SKILLS website.

The initial part of the meeting will be dedicated to review the status of Project activities and share knowledge and results achieved by Partners within the Consortium. Therefore, in the first two days (October 23-24, 2007) each Partner will present a summary of the performed activities in this first year. The timeslot allocated for each Partner has been assigned on the basis of the amount of Person Months in the Project. In order to be effective in this phase it is strongly recommended that each Partner prepare its presentation in advance, and in order to render such a presentation homogeneous it is also recommended that the time they have at disposal will be organised in such way:
a. The first part of Partner’s presentation (approximately 40% of the assigned time) should be dedicated to review the whole set of activities performed, by illustrating the role that they are playing within SKILLS, the relationships across RAs and DAs and their actual status. The scope of this presentation is to foster and accelerate cooperation across the Project and therefore the presentation should make it clear which results and when they will be available for cooperation in SKILLS.
b. The second part of Partner’s presentation (approximately 40% of the assigned time) can be dedicated to describe in more details one (or more) of the above-mentioned activities. This part can be arranged as a presentation in a scientific Conference and is dedicated to share knowledge and results across the Consortium.
c. The last part of the presentation (approx 20% of assigned time) can be used to discuss the presented points with the Consortium.

In order to be strictly on assigned time and to allow each participant in sharing the assigned amount of time, a Chairperson will moderate the sessions and remind about time deadlines. Similarly, this will be done for the subsequent Work Packages meetings.

After all Partners have presented, the following part of the meeting will discuss future Project activities and coordination issues. The drafting of the Implementation Plan for the next period will already be ready by the day of the meeting. We consider that Work Package meeting will be the ideal place to discuss and finalise open issues that have not already been solved during this month.

In the afternoon of the second day the Consortium will start the discussion of Work Packages objectives and activities related to IA and TA and to DA1. Each Work Package meeting will be of one hour and twenty minutes duration. The third day such a discussion will continue on DAs and RAs. Again, in order to be effective we recommend each WP leader to moderate the meeting such that they can manage all discussion points within the assigned time.
A proposed timeline follows:
· 10 min (WP leader): Overview of next period objectives, Implementation Plan organisation, planned activities and deliverables
· 15 min (WP leader): Analysis of open issues (e.g. coordination risk, adherence to SKILLS objectives, integration with other RAs and Demonstrators…)
· 35 min (All) Open discussion
· 20 min (All) Approving of modifications and actions list.

In the evening of Thursday, October 25, 2007 the 2nd Core Board meeting will take place.

Friday, October 26, 2007 will be employed for the main coordination meetings: the Scientific Committee and the General Assembly meeting.
A preliminary agenda for the points that will be addressed in such meetings follows:

· Scientific Committee meeting preliminary agenda:
o Finalisation of the draft Implementation Plan
o 1st SKILLS Review preparation and selection of the Workshop Programme
o Planning of events organised or participated by SKILLS in 2008
o Appointments of the Boards for next year
o Other issues

· General Assembly meeting preliminary agenda:
o Next Implementation Plan approval
o SKILLS video-conferencing system
o Management issues
o Financial issues
o Next deadlines and other issues.

If you have additional points to discuss in one of these two meetings, please contact us (skills.management@skills-ip.eu) as soon as possible in order to finalise the agenda contents by proper time.

Additionally, as you may see from the programme, during each meeting day there are still some timeslots available for technical meetings. In order to made proper reservations for the meeting, you should follow the instructions provided by Andrew Stddart from OMG and available here on the SKILLS website.

We look forward to working with each of you in creating effective presentations and a successful meeting.

Deadline for CAR and IP13-30

2007-07-05T23:00:00+01:00

D.RA1.1 Literature Review

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

A Literature review onthe definition of SKILLS in the context of multimodal interfaces.

Type: report and SW prototypes

Estimated PM 30

Dissemination level: Public

D.RA2.1 MM Data Format Management system

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

A software prototype and a book including a preliminary setup for a data handling system.

The work will collect partner expertise on data handling in the contect of MMI and provides an uniform approach to achieve information sharing and distribution. The software prototype will include a preliminary implementation of basic concepts.

Access: Restricted

D.RA3.1 Specifications and Architecture...

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

Specification and Architecture of the integrated multimodal capturing framework

Project document

Access: public

D.RA4.1 Architecture and requirements of the SKILLS rendering systems

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

Project document

Access: restricted

D.IA1.1 Plan for Using and Disseminating the Knowledge

1970-01-01T00:59:59+01:00

Responsible: PERCRO

Access: Public Restricted

D.IA2.1 Exploitation plan

2007-08-07T23:00:00+01:00

Responsible: PERCRO

Access: Restricted

D.DA2.2 System specification

2007-08-07T23:00:00+01:00

Responsible: CEA-LIST

Access: Restricted

D.DA3.2 Demonstrator setup for the different benchmark training tasks

2007-08-07T23:00:00+01:00

Responsible: DLR and KUKA

Access: Restricted

D.TA1.1 First release of training programme

2007-08-07T23:00:00+01:00

Responsible: LABEIN

Access: Public

Del D.DA.1b

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

Second Issue of the deliverable describing Scenarios for demonstrators

CARs request (1st October 2006 - 30th June 2007)

2007-08-07T23:00:00+01:00

SKILLS Internal Reporting System

Each Partner should fill in its CARs related to the following periods:

- 1st Quarter: 1 October 2006 – 31 December 2006
- 2nd Quarter: 1 January 2007 – 31 March 2007
- 3rd Quarter: 1 April 2007 – 30 June 2007

Please, send the three CARs of your organisation to the Management Team (management@skills-ip.eu) by Monday, August 27, 2007.

TA Questionnaire

2007-08-07T23:00:00+01:00

Questionnaire aiming at collecting information on the training activities to be planned during the 2nd year of the project.

Responsible: LABEIN

RA3 Meeting

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

Activities planning

1st Project Core Board

2007-07-02T23:00:00+01:00

Core Board agenda will consider:

* Status point of project activities

* analysis of relevant actions

* appointment of responsibilities

* draft planning for next period 13-30

DA3 Meeting

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

Definition of Scenario and organization of the activities among partners

Questionnaires on contribution of RA research related to demonstrators

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

Cross matrix questionnaire to verify feasibility of demonstrator in terms of scientific content and the amount of resources available

Request for Cost and Activity report to each partner

2007-07-02T23:00:00+01:00

Template documents to be filled by each project participant have been distributed by the project Coordinator

Reference periods

1st quarter

2nd quarter

Questionnaires on demonstration activities

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

As requested by SC in San Sebastian and coordinated by Technion

RA3 & 4 Workshop

2007-05-07T23:00:00+01:00

The partners of the project will introduce main research topics in the RA3 & 4 workshops. Each presentation will be followed with discussion on relevant research issues

DDA.1 Joint deliverable on Use Case and Evaluation Tools

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

The report will strategically analyse the demonstration scenarios and their task in order to plan and determine relevant research activities and teams that are required for successful integration of the demonstrators

Project report

Access: restricted

Workshop on RA1 and RA2 state of the art

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

Two days workshop:

RA1 on the first day,

RA2 on the socond one

Documentation material and videos are available on the website

DA1 Meeting

2007-07-04T23:00:00+01:00

Discussion about demonstrators on Sports and entertainment and planning of resources and activities for carring out activities.

EC grant transfers: Bank Details per Partner

2006-10-15T23:00:00+01:00

In order to avoid delays in the EC grant transfers, each SKILLS Contractor shall provide the Coordinator with complete Bank Details as follows:

ACCOUNT HOLDER NAME

BANK NAME

BANK ADDRESS (Full address)

ACCOUNT NUMBER (add ABI and CAB for Italian Contractors)

IBAN

SWIFT CODE (Important for international transfers!)

These Bank Details are to be sent by email, before October 16, 2006 at the following address: m.vignoni@sssup.it

SKILLS IP Kick-off meeting

2006-10-01T23:00:00+01:00

The Kick-off meeting of the SKILLS Integrated Project will take place in Pisa on 2nd October 2006 at the following address:

Scuola Superiore S. Anna
Room: Aula Magna Storica
Piazza Martiri della Liberta, 33
Pisa – Italy

The meeting will represent a good opportunity to meet each other and to deal with several aspects needed for the start up of the Project.

SKILLS EC Contract FORM A (accession form)

2006-09-28T23:00:00+01:00

In order to fulfill the signature procedure of the SKILLS Contract with the European Commission the Coordinator kindly ask to each Partner to send by express courier three original signed copies of the accession form (SKILLS FORM A - attached to the email sent on 8th September 2006 to each Partner) possibly by September 29, 2006 to the following address:

To the kindly attention of Dr Monica Vignoni
Research Division - EU Unit
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
P.zza Martiri della Libertà 33
56127 - Pisa, Italy

For further information or clarifications, feel free to contact: management.skills@sssup.it