An Approach to Circumstantial Knowledge Management for Human-Like Interaction

Proceedings of: 16th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS). Lisbon, Portugal, 27-30 April, 2014. http://www.iceis.org/?y=2014This paper proposes the design of a general-purpose domain-independent knowledge model formalizing and managing the circumstantial knowledge involved in the human interaction process, i.e., a Situation Model. Its design is aimed to be embodied into a human-like interaction system, thus enriching the quality of the interaction by providing context-aware features to the interaction system. The proposal differs from similar work in that it is supported by the spatio-temporal databases technology. Additionally, since the proposed model requires to be fed with real knowledge obtained from each specific interaction domain, this paper also proposes an edition tool for acquiring and managing that circumstantial knowledge. The tool also supports the simulation over the model to check the correctness and completeness of the acquired knowledge. Finally, some scenario examples are provided in order to illustrate how the Situation Model works, and to gain perspective on its future possibilities of application in different systems where context-aware services can make a difference.This work has been be applied in aresearch project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry (CADOOH,TSI-020302-2011-21).Publicad

Enhancing Natural Interaction with Circumstantial Knowledge

This work focuses the circumstantial knowledge management for a specific need: the achievement of Natural Interaction (NI). In first place, a cognitive approach to NI is glanced as the framework for such knowledge management. This approach reflects some certain requirements for the whole interaction system, which are met by a multi-agent system implementation. Finally, a Situation Modeling is proposed for a first approach to the interaction circumstances management.The presented work has been developed within the MAVIR project (S-505/TIC/0267) endorsed by the Regional Government of Madrid, and is being extended through the SOPAT project (CIT-410000-2007-12), supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education.Publicad

Conversations on a probable future: interview with Beatrice Fazi

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Circumstancial knowledge management for human-like interaction

This project focuses on the circumstantial aspects of human-like interaction. Its purpose is in the first place to design and develop a general-purpose situation model, which would enhance any natural interaction system by providing knowledge on the interaction context, and secondly to implement an intuitive management tool to edit the knowledge base of this situation model. The development of both the model and the edition tool has followed the usual processes of software engineering: requirements elicitation and specification, problem analysis, design of a solution, system implementation and validation. In more specific terms, an spiral lifecyle composed of three phases was followed, which is a convenient approach in research projects as all the system requirements might not be known from the very beginning. After the implementation was completed, an evaluation was carried out for observing the advantages of the edition tool over the manual edition of the model knowledge. The results of this evaluation showed that the tool provides a mechanism for the model management which is significantly faster and more accurate than the manual edition. Moreover, a subjective survey also revealed that the experiment subjects preferred the edition tool, as they considered it to be more comfortable, more intuitive, more reliable and more agile. The resulting general-purpose situation model and the edition tool are a significant contribution to the state of the art, as the previously existing situation models were ad-hoc models, i.e., models implemented for supporting an specific system, and their knowledge bases were edited manually. Finally, this work will be applied in a research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry (CADOOH, TSI-020302-2011-21), and for this reason some of the future works observed in this document will be executed in the coming months. A copy of the Cognos toolkit, including the edition tool developed within this project, is available in the next site: http://labda.inf.uc3m.es/doku.php?id=es:labda_lineas:cognos.Ingeniería Informátic

Discrimination, labour markets and the Labour Market Prospects of Older Workers: What Can a Legal Case Teach us?

As governments become increasingly concerned about the fiscal implications of the ageing population, labour market policies have sought to encourage mature workers to remain in the labour force. The ‘human capital’ discourses motivating these policies rest on the assumption that older workers armed with motivation and vocational skills will be able to return to fulfilling work. This paper uses the post-redundancy recruitment experiences of former Ansett Airlines flight attendants to develop a critique of these expectations. It suggests that policies to increase older workers’ labour market participation will not succeed while persistent socially constructed age- and gender- typing shape labour demand. The conclusion argues for policies sensitive to the institutional structures that shape employer preferences, the competitive rationality of discriminatory practices, and the irresolvable tension between workers’ human rights and employers’ property rights

The Devil Dwells in the Tails A Quantile Regression Approach to Firm Growth

This paper explores the firm growth rate distribution in a Gibrat’s Law context. The aim is to provide an empirical exploration of the determinants of firm growth. The work is novel in two respects. First, rather than limiting the analysis to focus on the conditional mean growth level, we investigate the complete shape of the distribution. Second, we show that the differences in the firm growth rate process between large and small firms are highly circumstantial. That industry dynamics have a substantial influence on the relationship between firm size and firm growth. The data used includes more than 9000 Danish firms from manufacturing, services and construction. We provide robust evidence indicating that firm growth studies should be less obsessed with explaining means and instead look to other parts of the firm growth rate distribution.Firm growth; quantile regression; distribution shape

Juror comprehension and the hard case - Making forensic evidence simpler

The complexity/comprehension nexus as it impacts on juror decision-making is addressed in the particular context of prosecution-led DNA evidence. Such evidence is for jurors the subject of pre-trial preconceptions, and is notoriously difficult to present and argue before a jury. The article looks at the comprehension of forensic evidence by jurors, a task qualified by the opinion of legal professionals whose responsibility it is to present and interpret such evidence in adversarial contexts. Jurors were surveyed post-verdict in trials where forensic evidence featured in circumstantial cases. These insights into comprehension were qualified by contesting views of legal professionals, and critical reflections from independent observation teams regarding the manner in which this evidence was used and its intended impact on the jury. What results is both declared and implicit indicators of comprehension, not so much against broad measures of complexity [Findlay, 2001. Juror comprehension and complexity: strategies to enhance understanding. British Journal of Criminology 41/1, 56.], but rather the particular place of popularly endowed forensic evidence within the circumstantial case. The article explores the utility of a multi-methodological study of comprehension from the perspectives of the proponents, commentators, recipients and observers of the adversarial contest. To this is employed a interactive analysis of important decision-sites and relationships of influence in the trial as they may impact on comprehension and be measured as ‘complex’

Woodland clearance in the Mesolithic: the social aspects.

Did Mesolithic people regard the woodland as a wilderness or park? Previous models have portrayed the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic as in tune with nature and making use of clearings to attract game. Using equally valid analogies, the authors propose a more hostile landscape that was conceived and managed with clearings and paths to help allay its menacing character

Black Labor at Pine Grove & Caledonia Furnaces, 1789-1860

Black labor operating under various degrees of freedom found a suitable working environment, if not a safe haven, in several iron forges of South Central Pennsylvania, from the late 1790s through the 1850s. Primary accounts indicate that two in particular, Pine Grove Furnace of Cumberland County, and Caledonia Furnace of Franklin County, harbored runaway slaves to augment their work force. Pine Grove records, dating from 1789 – 1801, specify names of “negro” employees, verifying that black labor coexisted with white, but day books, journals, and ledgers do not denote status.1 Whether they were free men, or slaves rented out by Pennsylvania slave owners, or runaways from the South cannot be gleaned from the day books. All three combinations were possible, especially in the 1790s. Circumstantial evidence suggests that escaped slaves did bolster the ranks of both forges until 1860. With renowned abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens in ownership of Caledonia, and proprietors sympathetic to the same cause at Pine Grove, the environment favored Underground Railroad activity. When this circumstance is coupled with the presence of a Quaker Meeting House in northern Adams County, and the recognition that both forges were within a thirty mile radius of the Maryland slave-state border, then a recipe existed for hide-outs to be employed in area furnaces. [excerpt

Lines-of-inquiry and sources of evidence in work-based research

There is synergy between the investigative practices of police detectives and social scientists, including work-based researchers. They both develop lines-of-inquiry and draw on multiple sources of evidence in order to make inferences about people, trends and phenomena. However, the principles associated with lines-of-inquiry and sources of evidence have not so far been examined in relation to work-based research methods, which are often unexplored or ill-defined in the published literature. We explore this gap by examining the various direct and indirect lines-of-inquiry and the main sources of primary and secondary evidence used in work-based research, which is especially relevant because some work-based researchers are also police detectives. Clearer understanding of these intersections will be useful in emerging professional contexts where the work-based researcher, the detective, and the social scientist cohere in the one person and their research project. The case we examined was a Professional Studies programme at a university in Australia, which has many police detectives doing work-based research, and from their experience we conclude there is synergy between work-based research and lines of enquiry. Specifically, in the context of research methods, we identify seven sources of evidence: 1) creative, unstructured, and semi-structured interviews; 2) structured interviews; 3) consensus group methods; 4) surveys; 5) documentation and archives; 6) direct observations and participant observations; and 7) physical or cultural artefacts, and show their methodological features related to data and method type, reliability, validity, and types of analysis, along with their respective advantages and disadvantages. This study thereby unpacks and isolates those characteristics of work-based research which are relevant to a growing body of literature related to the messy, co-produced and wicked problems of private companies, government agencies, and non-government organisations and the research methods used to investigate them