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@@ -29,25 +29,6 @@ This group identifies solutions for explicit interaction between a human user an
 
 HEI, however, includes both the ''implicit'' and the ''explicit'' interaction. In universAAL, the Service Infrastructure and Context Management expert groups deal with the implicit interaction in uSpaces, and the User Interaction Management (UIM) expert group is responsible for the explicit interaction which stayed in the shadow of implicit interaction for a long time[[Home#Footnotes|<sup>&#91;2&#93;</sup>]]. With the proliferation of (multi-)touch sensing, big displays as well as small displays embedded in all possible devices, and new interaction forms supported by special devices (e.g. Nintendo WiiMote and Microsoft Kinect) on one side, and progresses in speech recognition, natural language processing, and gesture recognition on the other side, explicit user interaction in smart environments is becoming more and more important.
 
-==Scope==
-
-Before enumerating some of the immediate challenges with which UIM must deal, we would like to summarize here the few terms from ''The universAAL Reference Model for AAL'' (see the universAAL deliverable D1.3 Part II) that are most relevant for us:
-
-;uSpace
-: A smart environment centred on its human users in which a set of embedded networked artefacts, both hardware and software, collectively realize the paradigm of Ambient Intelligence, mainly by providing for context-awareness and personalization, adaptive reactivity, and anticipatory pro-activity. Smart homes and cars are examples of uSpaces.
-;Channel
-: Smart environments need to bridge between the physical world and the virtual realm with the help of certain devices. Channel denotes the bridging passage provided by such devices between the physical world and the virtual realm. Depending on the kind of channel opened, a channel might be called a sensing channel (provided by sensors), an acting channel (provided by actuators), an input channel (provided by microphones, keyboards, etc.), or an output channel (provided by displays, loudspeakers, etc.). The latter two types of channels might be referred to as I/O Channels.
-;I/O Device
-: An abbreviation for input and / or output device. A device that provides an input and / or output channel for facilitating explicit interaction between a smart environment and its human users. Input devices, such as a microphone, a keyboard, or a mouse, can capture an instruction or response that is provided by a human user and represent it in terms of data in the virtual realm. Upon receive of data within the virtual realm that is intended to be presented to human users, output devices, such as displays and loudspeakers, can make it perceivable to the addressed humans.
-;Multimodal Interaction
-: The adaptive (context-aware and personalized) utilization of the set of I/O channels available in a smart environment for handling explicit interaction with human users in a natural way. "Multimodal" in this context serves as an abbreviated reference to the potential of performing the interaction using multiple channels in parallel, possibly with a hybrid mix supporting different modalities.
-
-Based on the above understanding, we see the most urgent challenges of the UIM in
-* Providing for the independence of applications from the concrete I/O infrastructure (set of concrete I/O channels) available in uSpaces as the latter might differ in its occurrences considerably. This can be achieved by distinguishing between an "application" layer and a "presentation" layer where the UI Framework sits in between. The components on the imaginary presentation layer can then be called I/O channel managers as opposed to applications that reside on the imaginary application layer.
-* The separation of the management of the concrete I/O infrastructure in an uSpace from applications necessitates a modeling of user interaction (UI Model) that is sufficient both for describing user interfaces in a modality-neutral manner and for performing personalized and context-aware adaptation, thereby setting the course for awesome user experience in uSpaces.
-* Consequently, there is need for intelligent (personalized and context-aware) brokerage between applications and I/O channel managers based on the above framework for adaptation.
-* Last but not least, UIM must also introduce a framework for modality fusion when capturing user input from different input channels as well as modality fission when using different output channels for presenting system output to human users.
-
 ==Relationship to the Concrete Architecture==
 
 As a matter of fact, the universAAL expert groups have been formed during the consolidation and generalization of the system architectures of the so-called input projects towards the universAAL concrete architecture. Therefore, there is often a direct relationship between the expert groups and certain architectural artefacts of universAAL in a way that they influence each other bilaterally, especially when it comes to definitions.