STHENOS: an online educational repository for affective computing

The main objective of the STHENOS project is the development of methodologies and systems for the recognition of physiological states and biological activities in assistive environments (affective computing research). The research aimed in developing human-centered computers that can understand states of the user (identity, emotions, and movements) using audiovisual and biological (neurophysiological as well) signals so as to enable an interaction mainly based on synthetic audiovisual information. The "human-centered computers" may be conventional computers, or even mobiles devices (phones, tablets), which are intelligent, mobile, ubiquitous and pervasive systems. Applications involved affective neuroscience experiments, experiments with affective smells, as well as, studies of emotion and depression or cognitive decline in elderly subjects. Game platforms for physical exercise (webFitForAll) and platforms for cognitive training were also employed in pilot trials of the project but were also considered for further developments in the pipeline for affective computing and gaming. The project team has also established an online educational repository based on technologies developed in the mEducator project. The application is available online at http://www.sthenos.gr/melinaplus and it’s called Sthenos Melina+. The educational content is exposed through semantic channels, such as RDFa graphs and a SPARQL endpoint, and, thus, is available not only to the application users but also in other LMS systems too. It is anticipated that with the population of the platform with educational material, the site will function as a hub for affective computing education in Greece and beyond.