Master's Thesis Topics available at DIS

Publication date: 2021-10-28

The Distributed & Interactive Systems group at CWI has new open positions for motivated students who would like to work on their Master’s thesis as an internship in the group. Topics include ubiquitous computing, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction and machine learning. Keep reading for more information about research topics, requirements and contact information.

Area: Ubiquitous Computing; Human-Computer Interaction; Machine Learning

Topics:

1. Sensing and visualizing live biosignals in wearable / extended reality (XR) environments
2. Acoustic sensing and classification of human breathing in virtual reality
3. Exploring non-verbal inter-personal synchrony in (social) virtual reality
4. Optimizing gather.town poster session interactions
5. FaceEmotionInput: using facial expressions for mood input on smartphones
6. Continuous evaluation of quality of experience (QoE) in virtual reality (joint project w/ I. Viola)

Skills:

• Required: biosensors (Empatica E4; Pupil Labs eye-tracker), camera sensing, image and signal processing; quantitative analysis, HCI research methods
• Topic-specific: Unity/C# (if focus is on VR settings); machine learning and deep learning (if ML focused project); computer vision; generative models (if focus is on adaptive layout generation), mobile development (e.g. Android)

Contact:
Abdallah El Ali (aea@cwi.nl), Pablo Cesar (p.s.cesar@cwi.nl)

Area: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning

Topics:

1. Generative models for data augmentation of physiological signals
2. Deep multiple instance regression for fine-grained emotion recognition using physiological signals

Skills:

• Required: Machine learning, especially generative models (e.g. GAN, VAE, Attention), deep learning networks (e.g. CNN, LSTM, DBN) and classical machine learning models (e.g. SVM, KNN, Bayesian networks), Python programming
• Topic-specific: Physiological signal processing (ECG, GSR, EEG, RSP, etc.), basic knowledge about computational study of human emotion

Contact:
Abdallah El Ali (aea@cwi.nl), Pablo Cesar (p.s.cesar@cwi.nl)

Area: Design Engineering; Human-Computer Interaction

Topics:

1. Experience the news: developing tools for immersive, multimodal journalism
2. Developing continuous emotion self-reports across smell, taste and/or temperature
3. Exploring wearable thermal displays to augment human-machine interactions with emotion
4. Exploring multimodal breathing displays to facilitate remote physiological synchrony
5. Exploring cross-reality emotion displays between VR users and bystanders

Skills:

• Required: Electronics & hardware prototyping (e.g. Arduino), controlled user studies, statistics
• Topic-specific: Unity/C# (if focus is on VR settings), GUI development (mobile or desktop), qualitative analysis

Contact:
Abdallah El Ali (aea@cwi.nl), Pablo Cesar (p.s.cesar@cwi.nl)

Area: Interaction Design; Human-Computer Interaction

Topics:

1. Creating a biosignal card deck for designing biofeedback experiences
2. Developing the biosignal visualization acceptability scale (BVAS)
3. Comparing emotion self-report input techniques in (social) virtual reality

Skills:

• Required: information visualization (sketching and prototyping); HCI / design research methods
• Topic-specific: C#/Unity (if focus is on VR environments), C/C++/Arduino (if focus is on tangible prototypes), biosensors (e.g. Empatica E4); quantitative and qualitative analysis

Contact:
Abdallah El Ali (aea@cwi.nl), Pablo Cesar (p.s.cesar@cwi.nl)