Conferences

Graduate students Amber Choo and Xin Tong, along with FCATs Undergraduate Research Fellow Cheryl Yu, won two awards at the Unite 2014 Conference in Seattle. Their two-dimensional boardgame – Aztec Treasures – was voted Best Game in the Unity & Windows Training and Porting Lab. Microsofts Surface devices were part of the award. Choo, Tong and Yu, who are Research Assistants in the Pain Studies Lab at Simon Fraser University in Canada, also snagged the Microsoft Surface Award for successfully porting three Virtual Reality (VR) games and one 2D boardgame to Windows phone online application store. Each received a Microsoft Nokia Lumia 1520 cell phone. According to the Pain Studies Lab founder and director, Dr. Diane Gromala, the immersive VR games were developed for patients who live with neuropathic or chronic pain to potentially help them manage this disease, as their early research results indicate. The board game was originally designed in SIATs graduate class in video game design. The UNITE conference attracted well over 1,000 attendees.

Both Xin Tong and Chao Feng who are graduate students in Pain Studies Lab presented two posters at co-located venues SIGGRAPH/Expressive/Computational Aesthetics 2014. Xins poster presented her new pain expression visualization design and pain patients activity data visualization. Chaos poster presented part of his thesis research affective space visualizations. The posters represented the latest studies conducted at the Pain Studies Lab about pain visualizations and personal pain data analytics.

SIGGRAPH is one the most prestigious venues for showcasing breakthroughs in practices and production in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. Computational Aesthetics is one of SIGGRAPHs co-located venues that bridges the analytic and synthetic by integrating aspects of computer science, philosophy, psychology, and the fine, applied & performing arts.

Xin Tong, Dr. Diane Gromala, Dr. Chris Shaw and Patrick Clarkes paper got accepted in Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Conference (EVA) 2014 and Dr. Shaw presented their paper Transformation between Electronic Arts and Chronic Pain: Long-term Body Activity Data Visualization and Pain Animation Expression in EVA.

Dr. Gromala and Dr. Shaw along with the Pain Studies Lab’s graduate students Mehdi Karamnejad, Xin Tong and Chao Feng attended GRAND 2014 in Ottawa. In Phase Two, CHRONIC project Leaders, NIs and HQPs coordinated meetings to discuss current progress within each sub-project and future research approaches and directions. The conference also facilitated networking sessions in order to assist project leaders and graduate students find potential collaborators. Additionally, graduate students Mehdi Karamnejad and  Xin Tong presented posters about their new research and study.  Chao Feng demoed his thesis research in various tracks.

The Pain Labs undergraduate research group presented their capstone project at the FCAT Undegrad Research Conference Saturday March 9th alongside other recognized projects in the program. The annual conference gives students the opportunity to share their essays, performances, films, art pieces,  and projects with the rest of the faculty while celebrating the diversity of the programs.

Sensorium was demoed to much success, seeing nearly twenty 15 minute demos over the day along with a research presentation delivered by the group. They are looking forward to starting their user studies at the end of March.

Follow their progress at  http://sensoriumresearch.wordpress.com

The 20th annual international conference Toward a Science of Consciousness will take place March 3-9, 2013 at the Dayalbagh Educational Institute (DEI) in Agra, India, home of the famed Taj Mahal. DEI is a high-level educational system, part of a spiritual community and farm housing 4000 people on an idyllic 1300 acres on the Yamuna River within the city of Agra. DEI research includes neuroscience, cognitive science, medicine, philosophy, nanoscience, quantum physics and consciousness. DEIs Dr. Vishal Sahni, author of many papers and several books on quantum computing, is the primary conference organizer.

Toward a Science of Consciousness is an international interdisciplinary conference entailing rigorous approaches to the understanding of conscious awareness, and our place in the universe. Since 1994, TSC conferences have been held in even-numbered years in Tucson, Arizona, sponsored and organized by the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. In odd-numbered years TSC conferences have been held at various locations around the world (1995 Naples, Italy; 1997 Elsinore, Denmark; 1999 Tokyo, Japan; 2001, Skovde, Sweden; 2003 Prague, Czech Republic; 2005 Copenhagen, Denmark; 2007 Budapest, Hungary; 2009 Hong Kong, China; 2011 Stockholm, Sweden. for more information please visit this link

Tyler Fox presented a workshop on Agitating Algae: Physical Computing and Bioluminescent Displays at ISEA 2012, the 18th International Symposium on Electronic Art, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sept. 19-24.

Heres the abstract for the workshop:

This workshop will introduce participants to bioluminescent dinoflagellates—marine dwelling, single-celled algae that emit light upon physical agitation. Using Arduino and simple physical computing arrangements, we will explore various ways to connect the inorganic with the organic, in our case using digital micro-controllers, motors, and bioluminescent algae. Additionally, participants will learn about bioluminescent dinoflagellates in nature, how to grow them at home, and will be offered their own packet of bioluminescent algae to take home. This workshop will be informal and casual, focusing on creativity and exploration rather than on developing engineering know-how.

The conference proceedings can be found here: isea2012.org/sites/default/files/ISEA2012_confproceedings_WEB.pdf