Papers by Stefano Valtolina
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), Jan 25, 2024
The advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies has revolutionized the field of multi-omics... more The advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies has revolutionized the field of multi-omics patient data analysis. While these techniques offer a wealth of information, they often generate datasets with dimensions far surpassing the number of available cases. This discrepancy in size gives rise to the challenging "small-sample-size" problem, significantly compromising the reliability of any subsequent estimate, whether supervised or unsupervised. This calls for effective dimensionality reduction techniques to transform highdimensional datasets into lower-dimensional spaces, making the data manageable and facilitating subsequent analyses. Unfortunately, the definition of a proper dimensionality reduction pipeline is not an easy task; besides the problem of identifying the best dimensionality reduction method, the definition of the dimension of the lower-dimensional space into which each dataset should be transformed is a crucial issue that influences all the subsequent analyses and should therefore be carefully considered.
Springer eBooks, 2019
This chapter presents the outcomes of the first stage of ESISTE ESISTE (Expert System Interaction... more This chapter presents the outcomes of the first stage of ESISTE ESISTE (Expert System Interaction Structured To Education), an interdisciplinary research project aimed at designing and developing an interactive system for the management of ICF-CY classification (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health-Children and Youth) in primary, secondary, and higher education levels in Italy. The goal of the project is to enable the inclusion in the education system of students with special needs involving in the process their teachers, family members, close friends, healthcare professionals and other stakeholders.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2019
The spread of Virtual Assistants (software and hardware) on the consumer market deeply changed th... more The spread of Virtual Assistants (software and hardware) on the consumer market deeply changed the way Internet of Things (IoT) is implemented and used today. Such devices, and related applications, are becoming more and more integrated within smart environments and this might pave the way to potential new approaches to End-User Development activities, which can be performed in IoT environments. This paper discusses the evolution of the IoT ecosystem definition that has been studied by the authors in the last years.
IEEE Conference Proceedings, 2018
Interaction Design and Architecture(s), Jun 10, 2018
This paper illustrates the research and development work done in the last 4 years in the frame of... more This paper illustrates the research and development work done in the last 4 years in the frame of rescue operations of migrants who attempt to reach Italian coasts via sea journeys on Mediterranean routes. The context, characterized by humanitarian, social, and organizational issues, presents complex challenges that can only be tackled with a multidisciplinary, participatory, and internationalized approach. The ITHEALTH system and the results of its usability and user experience evaluations are presented. It takes inspiration from other projects developed for different purposes but acting in similar context and according to similar socio-technical dimensions.
International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2017
This position paper illustrates the research and development work done in the last years for unde... more This position paper illustrates the research and development work done in the last years for understanding how to support domain experts in the rescue operations of migrants who attempt to reach Italian coasts via sea journeys on Mediterranean routes. The context, characterized by humanitarian, social, and organizational issues, presents complex challenges that can only be tackled with a multidisciplinary, participatory, and internationalized approach
In IoT domain, communities of domain experts, having different skills in specific areas of endeav... more In IoT domain, communities of domain experts, having different skills in specific areas of endeavor, need an effective and easy-to-use strategy for managing physical devices and their data streams. Specifically, in this paper we are interested in discussing a sociotechnical study aimed at designing an IoT ecosystem to be used by non-professional sport teams. Nowadays, coaches and trainers want to take advantage from the plethora of sensors and applications that can be used for monitoring the quality of their athletes' activities and behaviors, but they need an easy to use environment to perform proper policies, and the visualization and analysis of relevant events. Starting from a definition of End-User Development (EUD) designed around the pervasive requirements of IoT applications, we describe a system able to provide coaches and trainers with a tool for monitoring, studying the flow of events to detect significant situations, and triggering proper actions through the use of filtering and temporal operators.
In recent years we have seen a significant proliferation of e-learning platforms. E-learning plat... more In recent years we have seen a significant proliferation of e-learning platforms. E-learning platforms allow teachers to create digital courses in a more effective and time-saving way, but several flaws hinder their actual success. One main problem is that teachers have difficulties finding and combining open-access learning materials matching their specific needs precisely when there are so many to choose from. This paper proposes a new strategy for creating digital courses that use learning objects (LOs) as primary elements. The idea consists of using an intelligent chatbot to assist teachers in their activities. Defined using RASA technology, the chatbot asks for information about the course the teacher has to create based on her/his profile and needs. It suggests the best LOs and how to combine them according to their prerequisites and outcomes. A chatbot-based recommendation system provides suggestions through BERT, a machine-learning model based on Transformers, to define the ...
Communications in computer and information science, 2023
HCI International 2018 – Posters' Extended Abstracts, 2018
Mobile interface design covers wide range of issues, ranging from user type to user activity. Con... more Mobile interface design covers wide range of issues, ranging from user type to user activity. Considering mobile interaction in spatial context of use, we propose activity based UI configuration for mobile geo-applications. The proposed approach were evaluated using point-of-interests application on three common human activities. The results showed that our approach ensures good context detection performance and enhances usability.
Journal on Educational Technology, 2014
In queste pagine si introduce una piattaforma a servizio degli usuali Learning Management Systems... more In queste pagine si introduce una piattaforma a servizio degli usuali Learning Management Systems (LMS) per consentirne un utilizzo facile e proficuo da parte dei docenti di un determinato settore. Nello specifico la piattaforma costituisce il supporto informativo a un ampio progetto di promozione dell’educazione all’imprenditorialita lanciato dalla Comunita Europea. La chiave di volta e costituta dai metadati con cui sono descritti i suoi contenuti. Questi metadati sono alla base delle procedure d’interrogazione e raccomandazione, nonche di altre azioni “social” sulle quali i docenti possono contare per reperire il materiale su cui fondare i corsi che intendono erogare. In tal prospettiva la piattaforma s’identifica con una social network per utenti esigenti, appunto i docenti, che si aspettano di reperire nel sistema materiali autorevoli e appropriati, essendo capaci di valutarne tali aspetti e al contempo desiderosi di venire guidati nella loro ricerca all’interno dell’ampio repe...
With the widespread of Internet of Things’ devices, sensors, and applications, the quantity of co... more With the widespread of Internet of Things’ devices, sensors, and applications, the quantity of collected data grows enormously and the need of extracting, merging, analyzing, visualizing, and sharing it paves the way for new research challenges. This ongoing revolution of how personal devices are used and how they are be-coming more and more wearable has important influences on the most well established definitions of end user and end-user development. The paper presents an analysis of the most diffused applications that allow end users to aggregate quantified-self data, originated by several sensors and devices, and to use it in personalized ways. From the outcomes of the analysis, we present a new EUD paradigm and language that extends the ones existing in the current state of the art Internet of Things.
2019 IEEE International Congress on Internet of Things (ICIOT), 2019
In smart cities, there has been a significant growth of IoT brokers by mean of which IoT applicat... more In smart cities, there has been a significant growth of IoT brokers by mean of which IoT applications can subscribe to the real-time events produced by sensors. However, these brokers follow different communication protocols (e.g. mqtt, amqp, ngsi), event formats, structures and sometimes meaning. This makes the development of horizontal applications across heterogeneous IoT platforms complicated and demanding. In light of this, we developed the IoT-Directory for the management of heterogeneous brokers in an Ontology based way. In this paper we present a newly added facility of the IoT-Directory for addressing the issue of the massive acquisition of devices and sensors directly from the IoT brokers, and for supporting the user in providing missing and/or incorrect information not available in the IoT brokers. For the former issue, we exploit brokers' functionalities for querying and extracting the available data and we automatically ingest them in the IoT-Directory, for the latter one we offer graphical interfaces by means of which users can specify 'IFTTT' rules to easily update several devices and sensors in a single shot.
Research Square (Research Square), Jun 27, 2023
In recent years we have seen a signi cant proliferation of e-learning platforms. E-learning platf... more In recent years we have seen a signi cant proliferation of e-learning platforms. E-learning platforms allow teachers to create digital courses in a more effective and time-saving way, but several aws hinder their actual success. One main problem is that teachers have di culties nding and combining open-access learning materials matching their speci c needs precisely when there are so many to choose from. This paper proposes a new strategy for creating digital courses that use learning objects (LOs) as primary elements. The idea consists of using an intelligent chatbot to assist teachers in their activities. De ned using RASA technology, the chatbot asks for information about the course the teacher has to create based on her/his pro le and needs. It suggests the best LOs and how to combine them according to their prerequisites and outcomes. A chatbot-based recommendation system provides suggestions through BERT, a machine-learning model based on Transformers, to de ne the semantic similarity between the entered data and the LOs metadata. In addition, the chatbot also suggests how to combine the LOs into a nal learning path. Finally, the paper presents some preliminary results about tests carried out by teachers in creating their digital courses.
CEUR workshop proceedings, 2015
Conventional data analytics platforms are not adequate to be applied in the management of emergen... more Conventional data analytics platforms are not adequate to be applied in the management of emergency situations. The 3V the usually characterize big data (volume, variety, velocity) along with the issue of integrating information coming from heterogeneous networks require the development of new systems. In this paper we provide the design of a data analytics platform that we are developing around the concept of event, that is simple or complex data stream gathered from physical and social sensors that are encapsulated with contextual information (space, time, thematics).
Behaviour & Information Technology, 2019
IEEE Access, 2020
Our research work describes a team of human Digital Twins (DTs), each tracking fitness-related me... more Our research work describes a team of human Digital Twins (DTs), each tracking fitness-related measurements describing an athlete's behavior in consecutive days (e.g. food income, activity, sleep). After collecting enough measurements, the DT firstly predicts the physical twin performance during training and, in case of non-optimal result, it suggests modifications in the athlete's behavior. The athlete's team is integrated into SmartFit, a software framework for supporting trainers and coaches in monitoring and manage athletes' fitness activity and results. Through IoT sensors embedded in wearable devices and applications for manual logging (e.g. mood, food income), SmartFit continuously captures measurements, initially treated as the dynamic data describing the current physical twins' status. Dynamic data allows adapting each DT's status and triggering the DT's predictions and suggestions. The analyzed measurements are stored as the historical data, further processed by the DT to update (increase) its knowledge and ability to provide reliable predictions. Results show that, thanks to the team of DTs, SmartFit computes trustable predictions of the physical twins' conditions and produces understandable suggestions which can be used by trainers to trigger optimization actions in the athletes' behavior. Though applied in the sport context, SmartFit can be easily adapted to other monitoring tasks. INDEX TERMS Counterfactual explanations, digital twins, Internet of Things, machine learning, smart health, sociotechnical design, wearables.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2017
End-User Development: An Emerging Paradigm.- Psychological Issues in End-User Programming.- More ... more End-User Development: An Emerging Paradigm.- Psychological Issues in End-User Programming.- More Natural Programming Languages and Environments.- What Makes End-User Development Tick? 13 Design Guidelines.- An Integrated Software Engineering Approach for End-User Programmers.- Component-Based Approaches to Tailorable Systems.- Natural Development of Nomadic Interfaces Based on Conceptual Descriptions.- End User Development of Web Applications.- End-User Development: The Software Shaping Workshop Approach.- Participatory Programming: Developing Programmable Bioinformatics Tools for End-Users.- Challenges for End-User Development in Intelligent Environments.- Fuzzy Rewriting.- Breaking It Up: An Industrial Case Study of Component-Based Tailorable Software Design.- End-User Development as Adaptive Maintenance.- Supporting Collaborative Tailoring.- EUD as Integration of Components Off-The-Shelf: The Role of Software Professionals Knowledge Artifacts.- Organizational View of End-User Development.- A Semiotic Framing for End-User Development.- Meta-design: A Framework for the Future of End-User Development.- Feasibility Studies for Programming in Natural Language.- Future Perspectives in End-User Development.
Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces
The sixth edition of the CoPDA workshop is dedicated to discussing the current challenges and opp... more The sixth edition of the CoPDA workshop is dedicated to discussing the current challenges and opportunities with respect to Artificial Intelligence (AI) by contrasting it with the objectives pursued by Human-Centered Design (HCD). The workshop aims to establish a forum to explore our basic assumption (and to provide at least partial evidence) that the most successful AI systems out there today are dependent on teams of humans, just as humans depend on these systems to gain access to information, provide insights and perform tasks beyond their own capabilities. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → HCI theory, concepts and models; • Computing methodologies → Philosophical/theoretical foundations of artificial intelligence.
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Papers by Stefano Valtolina