Prof N Ramzan, Dr P Charalampos
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
Emotion is a psycho-physiological process that is activated by cognisant and/or incognisant perception of an article or situation. It is associated with temper, personality, character, disposition, and inspiration. Emotions perform a significant part in personal or social communication and can be conveyed verbally by expressive words or expressed by non-verbal signs such as facial expressions and gestures.
Most conventional gyms provide a number of exercise devices to make people active or build their physical muscles but in a passive, dull and static environment. However, at the Emotional Gym our main aim is to provide an interactive environment that is derived by users’ emotions and has a self-adapting capability driven by these emotions. In addition, it motivates the user by providing interactivity and emotional state adaptation.
Emotional gym will be based on robots, designed 2D/3D games, virtual reality environments (Oculus rift), physiological (heart rate, ECG, respiratory rate etc.) recordings and monitoring systems, brain signals (EEG), and static and dynamic user information acquired by means of the Microsoft Kinect sensor.
The physical cycling game controller will be an enhanced computer controlled bike-exercise-trainer that enables handle bar steering and sets pedal resistance that helps to provoke emotions with game elements in different game settings. In addition, our recording system synchronously captures video, game controller activity, and game events for emotion analysis.
This project has guaranteed funding for three years and is a joint venture of three fields namely; computer science, psychology and practitioner or old home carer and that’s why three academics from three different fields are in the supervisory team to complete the PhD in a timely manner. The final outcome will be a real time concept demonstrator to show the university research standing and help to get external funding.
Funding Notes
The University of the West of Scotland (UWS) is seeking to attract PhD candidates of outstanding ability and commitment to join its vibrant and growing programme of internationally excellent research. Successful applicants will receive an annual stipend (currently £14,553) per annum for three years and payment of tuition fees (current value £4200). Successful applicants will be expected to contribute up to 6 hours/week to UWS’ academic related activities.
References
Studentships are open to Home/EU candidates with a first degree in a relevant discipline. Non- EU students can apply, but will not receive the stipend and will be required to pay fees. How to apply: Postgraduate Degree by Research Applications should be completed online at http://www.uws.ac.uk/research/graduate-school/prospective-students/
Applications without all relevant documents will not be considered. Please quote the Reference Number PHDEC1701.
Profile:
The appointed candidate should have interests and/or expertise in one or more of the following areas:
• Machine learning
• Computer vision
• Robotics
Experience with one or more of the following technologies is also required: Python, Matlab, C/C++.
Please contact Prof. Naeem Ramzan (Naeem.ramzan@uws.ac.uk) for further details.