@MarkDunne

PhD Student at DIT Kevin Street. Researching in the area of intelligent virtual agents (IVA) as part of the LOK8 group, in the Digital Media Centre.

Profile

PhD Researcher at Dublin Institute of Technology
Research | Ireland, IE

Summary

PhD research into Personal Location Based Services (PLBS) as part of the LOK8 (locate) project in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), with a special interest in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) working with Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA).

PLBS are an emerging area of core strategic ICT research in DIT, where existing inter-faculty research has led to the formation of a dedicated research team focused in this area. In LOK8, personalised LBS will be investigated using mobile devices ranging from auditory user interfaces on Bluetooth earpieces to intelligent avatars equipped with cameras, microphones, speakers, and projectors.
Specialties: C#, XNA Studio, Kinect SDK

Experience

  • Sept 2008 - Present
    PhD Researcher / Dublin Institute of Technology
    The LOK8 (locate) project is funded by Strand III and its goal is to create a new and innovative approach to human-computer interactions. With LOK8 a person will be able to engage in meaningful interaction with a computer interface in a much more natural and intuitive way than we are used to. A virtual character (Avatar) will be displayed in numerous locations depending on the user’s position and context. Users will be able to communicate with this virtual character through speech and gestural input/output, which will be processed and controlled by the dialog management component. This will allow “face-to-face” interactions with the LOK8 system. The LOK8 system will deliver content to the user in a variety of context-specific ways with the aim of tailoring content to suit the user’s needs. In addition to screens and projectors displaying the avatar, the user’s mobile device, as well as speakers within the environment, will be used to deliver focus-independent content. Ultimately the goal is to replace a human-computer interface with a human-“virtual human” interface. More info: LOK8.dit.ie
  • May 2008 - Sept 2008
    Research Assistant - Game Developer / EGG - DIT Kevin Street, Dublin 2
    Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative (MLPSI) project funded the development of educational games with expertise from DIT's School of Computing, Learning Technology Team and School of Languages for the MLPSI. The game is to be used to supplement class-work and consolidate what has already been learned-including reading, aural comprehension and written responses. The approach used in this project is to use a series of mini-games linked by a common theme. Each mini-game maps to the curriculum. Languages being used are: Italian, Spanish, German and French.
  • Jun 2007 - Sept 2007
    Games Tester / Vivendi Universal
    Vivendi is one of Ireland’s largest game publishers. They publish such titles as World of Warcraft, Crash, F.E.A.R. and new titles include Time Shift and World in Conflict. The latter been what I spent all my time testing while with Vivendi. My particular role and the role of the office in which I worked was localization. I worked on all the western European language version of the game, i.e. Polish, Russian etc.

    I basically logged language and functionality issues, which were regression in all future builds. I’m proud to say the versions of W.i.C. my team and I worked on were 99.9% bug free and any remaining bugs were easily fixed through patches post release.
  • May 2006 - Aug 2006
    Software Tester / Information Mosaic
    Information Mosaic (IM) is a global provider of advanced middle and back office solutions for the securities services industry. While placed there for the summer I spent allot of time analyzing the products and their new features. This was my 3rd year work placement. The main level at which I worked was mainly in acceptance testing area but also as part of the testing department I had very hands on experience at component testing, component integration testing and system testing.

    As part of my Acceptance testing I had to evaluate and test the demo/test products to make sure they were bug free which allowed the end-users or customers to decide whether or not to accept the product. I drafted many test cases to implement successful regression testing also. Acceptance testing also involved me trouble shooting many of the user interfaces to make sure they met with the end-users or customers requirements.
  • Jun 2003 - Jun 2003
    Volunteer Venue Worker / Smithwick's Cat Laughs Comedy Festival - Kilkenny
    June 2003/04/05/06/07/08/09 - Smithwick's Cat Laughs Comedy Festival

    The Cat Laughs is a comedy festival held in Kilkenny City very June bank holiday weekend for the last 16 years, since 1994. The comedians are invited from all around the world, with plenty of homegrown talent too. The festival takes place in 15 plus venues, with shows every hour at the bigger venues. Some of the duties I do include Selling Tickets/Credit Card ticket Collection, Taking Tickets at the Door, Seating People, Tidy Up, and the Show Turn-Around.

Education

  • 2006 - 2008
    Dublin Institute of Technology
    DT228 - BSc (Hons) Computer Science in Computer Science
  • 2003 - 2006
    Dublin Institute of Technology
    DT354 - BSc (Hons) Business Computing in Business Computing
  • 2002 - 2003
    Trinity College, Dublin
    TR071 - BSc (Hons) Common Entry Science in Science
  • 1996 - 2002
    Kilkenny College, Kilkenny (KCK)
    Junior & Leaving Certs. in Secondary School

Uploads

Favorites

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz