Meetings and Meeting Modeling in Smart Environments

In this paper we survey our research on smart meeting rooms and its relevance for augmented reality meeting support and virtual reality generation of meetings in real time or off-line. The research reported here forms part of the European 5th and 6th framework programme projects multi-modal meeting manager (M4) and augmented multi-party interaction (AMI). Both projects aim at building a smart meeting environment that is able to collect multimodal captures of the activities and discussions in a meeting room, with the aim to use this information as input to tools that allow real-time support, browsing, retrieval and summarization of meetings. Our aim is to research (semantic) representations of what takes place during meetings in order to allow generation, e.g. in virtual reality, of meeting activities (discussions, presentations, voting, etc.). Being able to do so also allows us to look at tools that provide support during a meeting and at tools that allow those not able to be physically present during a meeting to take part in a virtual way. This may lead to situations where the differences between real meeting participants, human-controlled virtual participants and (semi-) autonomous virtual participants disappear

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 2 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division 9 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 12 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 14 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 16 Advertisements IEEE

Development and Validation of a Basic Ground Skills Assessment for Equine-Assisted Services

The equine-assisted services program at Utah State University produced and validated an assessment process used to test equines for suitability for equine-assisted services. Equine-assisted services incorporate the interaction of humans who face mental, physical, emotional, and/or social challenges and equines for therapeutic purposes. Recreational, physical, mental, social, and/or emotional goals are met through various equine-assisted services such as therapies, equine-assisted learning, and horsemanship. Due to the potential for human injury while interacting with equines, it is important to ensure equines are assessed for safe behavior prior to participation in equine-assisted services. This is why our group developed and tested the Basic Ground Skills Assessment. It was found to be valid and moderately reliable. Use of this assessment in the industry may increase the safety of humans by ensuring only suitable equines are engaged in equine-assisted services. Additionally, a survey was distributed to Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International centers to better understand the equine evaluation procedures currently in practice. The survey’s results indicated that centers may benefit from a validated assessment process, as we have developed, as there was not a common assessment process currently in place

Analysis of Abstractive and Extractive Summarization Methods

This paper explains the existing approaches employed for (automatic) text summarization. The summarizing method is part of the natural language processing (NLP) field and is applied to the source document to produce a compact version that preserves its aggregate meaning and key concepts. On a broader scale, approaches for text-based summarization are categorized into two groups: abstractive and extractive. In abstractive summarization, the main contents of the input text are paraphrased, possibly using vocabulary that is not present in the source document, while in extractive summarization, the output summary is a subset of the input text and is generated by using the sentence ranking technique. In this paper, the main ideas behind the existing methods used for abstractive and extractive summarization are discussed broadly. A comparative study of these methods is also highlighted

Spartan Daily, February 24, 2005

Volume 124, Issue 20https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/10092/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, February 24, 2005

Volume 124, Issue 20https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/10092/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, September 18, 2003

Volume 121, Issue 15https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9881/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, September 18, 2003

Volume 121, Issue 15https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9881/thumbnail.jp

Strengthening Construction Management in the Rural Rehab Line of Business

The Five Key ObservationsObservation#1: Rural rehab success emanated from positive thinking and persistent implementationObservation #2: Almost every RHRO would benefit from a substantial increase in the per unit funding available, especially in light of the forthcoming HUD HOME requirement to establish written rehab standards in ten subcategories.Observation #3: A smartphone and tablet with 20 to 40 apps is the rehab specialist's Swiss Army knife. They are our, GPS, calculator, spec writer, office lifeline in case of danger, camera, clock, cost estimator calendar and a hundred other single-purpose but very important uses.Observation #4: NeighborWorks® Rural Initiative could provide a clearinghouse for success techniques targeted to rural rehab. Each month it might focus on a specific aspect of rehab management; inspection checklists in January, green specs in February, feasibility checklist in March, contractor qualification questionnaires in April and so on.Observation #5: Even with most components of in-house contractor success formula in place, per the Statistic Research Institute 53% of construction firms go out of business with in the first 4 years. It remains a very risky model that requires significant; funding, staff experience, administrative support and risk tolerance.Three Rehab Production Models And Their AlternativesThis middle section restates the introduction and methodology and offers a detailed review of the Traditional Rehab Specialist, Construction Management Of Subcontractor and the In-House General Contractor production models .for each model the article provides: definition and staffing pattern, design roles and tasks for each major player, benefits and challenges, alternative models and finally recommendations for successful implementationFocus TopicsDuring our interview process, three ideas surfaced that were best served with a mini discussion of the topic rather than being embedded in the already large middle section.The three topics are; software and technology, management of community relations – marketing and quality control, and budget solution

Spartan Daily March 18, 2013

Volume 140, Issue 27https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1394/thumbnail.jp