In recent years, research on convolutional neural networks (CNN) and recurrent neural networks (RNN) in deep learning has been actively conducted. In order to provide more personalized and advanced functions in smart home services, studies on deep learning applications are becoming more frequent, and deep learning is acknowledged as an efficient method for recognizing the voices and activities of users. In this context, this study aims to systematically review the smart home studies that apply CNN and RNN/LSTM as their main solution. Of the 632 studies retrieved from the Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Explore, and PubMed databases, 43 studies were selected and analyzed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology. In this paper, we examine which smart home applications CNN and RNN/LSTM are applied to and compare how they were implemented and evaluated. The selected studies dealt with a total of 15 application areas for smart homes, where activity recognition was covered the most. This study provides essential data for all researchers who want to apply deep learning for smart homes, identifies the main trends, and can help to guide design and evaluation decisions for particular smart home services.

In recent years, recommender systems have been used as a solution to support tourists with recommendations oriented to maximize the entertainment value of visiting a tourist destination. However, this is not an easy task because many aspects need to be considered to make realistic recommendations: the context of a tourist destination visited, lack of updated information about points of interest, transport information, weather forecast, etc. The recommendations concerning a tourist destination must be linked to the interests and constraints of the tourist. In this research, we present a mobile recommender system based on Tourist Trip Design Problem (TTDP)/Time Depending (TD) – Orienteering Problem (OP) – Time Windows (TW), which analyzes in real time the user’s constraints and the points of interest’s constraints. For solving TTDP, we clustered preferences depending on the number of days that a tourist will visit a tourist destination using a k-means algorithm. Then, with a genetic algorithm (GA), we optimize the proposed itineraries to tourists for facilitating the organization of their visits. We also used a parametrized fitness function to include any element of the context to generate an optimized recommendation. Our recommender is different from others because it is scalable and adaptable to environmental changes and users’ interests, and it offers real-time recommendations. To test our recommender, we developed an application that uses our algorithm. Finally, 131 tourists used this recommender system and an analysis of users’ perceptions was developed. Metrics were also used to detect the percentage of precision, in order to determine the degree of accuracy of the recommender system. This study has implications for researchers interested in developing software to recommend the best itinerary for tourists with constraint controls with regard to the optimized itineraries.

Before interacting with real users, developers must be proficient in human–computer interaction (HCI) so as not to exhaust user patience and availability. For that, substantial training and practice are required, but it is costly to create a variety of high-quality HCI training materials. In this context, chat generative pretrained transformer (ChatGPT) and other chatbots based on large language models (LLMs) offer an opportunity to generate training materials of acceptable quality without foregoing specific human characteristics present in real-world scenarios. Personas is a user-centered design method that encompasses fictitious but believable user archetypes to help designers understand and empathize with their target audience during product design. We conducted an exploratory study on the Personas technique, addressing the validity and believability of interviews designed by HCI trainers and answered by ChatGPT-simulated users, which can be used as training material for persona creation. Specifically, we employed ChatGPT to respond to interviews designed by user experience (UX) experts. Two groups, HCI professors and professionals, then evaluated the validity of the generated materials considering quality, usefulness, UX, and ethics. The results show that both groups rated the interviews as believable and helpful for Personas training. However, some concerns about response repetition and low response variability suggested the need for further research on improved prompt design in order to generate more diverse and well-developed responses. The findings of this study provide insight into how HCI trainers can use ChatGPT to help their students master persona creation skills before working with real users in real-world scenarios for the first time.

During the past years, the development of assistive technologies for visually impaired (VI)/blind people has helped address various challenges in their lives by providing services such as obstacle detection, indoor/outdoor navigation, scene description, text reading, facial recognition and so on. This systematic mapping review is mainly focused on the scene understanding aspect (e.g., object recognition and obstacle detection) of assistive solutions. It provides guidance for researchers in this field to understand the advances during the last four and a half years. This is because deep learning techniques together with computer vision have become more powerful and accurate than ever in tasks like object detection. These advancements can bring a radical change in the development of high-quality assistive technologies for VI/blind users. Additionally, an overview of the current challenges and a comparison between different solutions is provided to indicate the pros and cons of existing approaches.