26,700 research outputs found
Augmenting conversations through context-aware multimedia retrieval based on speech recognition
Future’s environments will be sensitive and responsive to the presence of people to support them carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals, in an easy and natural way. Such interactive spaces will use the information and communication technologies to bring the computation into the physical world, in order to enhance ordinary activities of their users. This paper describes a speech-based spoken multimedia retrieval system that can be used to present relevant video-podcast (vodcast) footage, in response to spontaneous speech and conversations during daily life activities. The proposed system allows users to search the spoken content of multimedia files rather than their associated meta-information and let them navigate to the right portion where queried words are spoken by facilitating within-medium searches of multimedia content through a bag-of-words approach. Finally, we have studied the proposed system on different scenarios by using vodcasts in English from various categories, as the targeted multimedia, and discussed how it would enhance people’s everyday life activities by different scenarios including education, entertainment, marketing, news and workplace
A Review of the Literature and Implications for People with Disabilities (E-Human Resources Literature Review)
To accomplish this overview, an extensive review of the literature on information technology applications to the employment process was conducted. Three human resources related uses of the Internet are explored in this review of current literature: E-recruiting, E-benefits/HR, E-training. Each of these areas can have a significant impact on employees with disabilities, especially given the growth of business’ use of the Web. If E-recruiting is not accessible, it could prevent people from applying for or even finding open positions. E-training, if not accessible, could create a new barrier to the advancement of individuals who are unable to access online training to improve or update their skills. E-benefits, while likely to make enrollment and other activities easier for many employees, may become an obstacle for individuals with certain disabilities if not designed to be accessible. In addition, we examined the literature for any current discussion of access issues for applicants and employees with disabilities by business. In the remainder of this introduction, we also cover the World Wide Web and accessibility issues for people with disabilities, legislation relevant to Internet accessibility, and studies of Web accessibility
Small cities face greater impact from automation
The city has proven to be the most successful form of human agglomeration and
provides wide employment opportunities for its dwellers. As advances in
robotics and artificial intelligence revive concerns about the impact of
automation on jobs, a question looms: How will automation affect employment in
cities? Here, we provide a comparative picture of the impact of automation
across U.S. urban areas. Small cities will undertake greater adjustments, such
as worker displacement and job content substitutions. We demonstrate that large
cities exhibit increased occupational and skill specialization due to increased
abundance of managerial and technical professions. These occupations are not
easily automatable, and, thus, reduce the potential impact of automation in
large cities. Our results pass several robustness checks including potential
errors in the estimation of occupational automation and sub-sampling of
occupations. Our study provides the first empirical law connecting two societal
forces: urban agglomeration and automation's impact on employment
An eLearning Narration Modality Study: In Pursuit of Faster, Cheaper, and Almost the Same
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of five different eLearning modality practices on workplace learning and perceived learner satisfaction. Using a factorial posttest comparison design (with a control group), this experimental field study explored the learning effects and learner perceived satisfaction associated with the use of different modality approaches within an eLearning course delivered in a workplace. More than 3,000 study participants, who are part of a U.S. federal workforce, where randomly assigned to one of five narration groups. A Learning Management System (LMS) gathered demographic data, administered the course, recorded individual test scores, learner satisfaction scores, and recorded times associated with course completion.
Findings from this study suggest that in a U.S. workplace environment, eLearning using text-only (i.e., no voice narration) has similar learning outcomes to eLearning with narration. The important potential benefit of this finding is the reduction to costs associated with eLearning development and implementation—that is, faster and cheaper eLearning development while achieving almost the same learning outcomes. Coupled with the learner satisfaction finding in this study, that workplace learners preferred text-only over any of the forms of narration in this study, then a strong case begins to form for using text-only with straightforward content, for eLearning to be implemented in a U.S. workplace setting
Affect and Metaphor Sensing in Virtual Drama
We report our developments on metaphor and affect sensing for several metaphorical language phenomena including affects as external entities metaphor, food metaphor, animal metaphor, size metaphor, and anger metaphor. The metaphor and affect sensing component has been embedded in a conversational intelligent agent interacting with human users under loose scenarios. Evaluation for the detection of several metaphorical language phenomena and affect is provided. Our paper contributes to the journal themes on believable virtual characters in real-time narrative environment, narrative in digital games and storytelling and educational gaming with social software
Research and Development Workstation Environment: the new class of Current Research Information Systems
Against the backdrop of the development of modern technologies in the field
of scientific research the new class of Current Research Information Systems
(CRIS) and related intelligent information technologies has arisen. It was
called - Research and Development Workstation Environment (RDWE) - the
comprehensive problem-oriented information systems for scientific research and
development lifecycle support. The given paper describes design and development
fundamentals of the RDWE class systems. The RDWE class system's generalized
information model is represented in the article as a three-tuple composite web
service that include: a set of atomic web services, each of them can be
designed and developed as a microservice or a desktop application, that allows
them to be used as an independent software separately; a set of functions, the
functional filling-up of the Research and Development Workstation Environment;
a subset of atomic web services that are required to implement function of
composite web service. In accordance with the fundamental information model of
the RDWE class the system for supporting research in the field of ontology
engineering - the automated building of applied ontology in an arbitrary domain
area, scientific and technical creativity - the automated preparation of
application documents for patenting inventions in Ukraine was developed. It was
called - Personal Research Information System. A distinctive feature of such
systems is the possibility of their problematic orientation to various types of
scientific activities by combining on a variety of functional services and
adding new ones within the cloud integrated environment. The main results of
our work are focused on enhancing the effectiveness of the scientist's research
and development lifecycle in the arbitrary domain area.Comment: In English, 13 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, added references in Russian.
Published. Prepared for special issue (UkrPROG 2018 conference) of the
scientific journal "Problems of programming" (Founder: National Academy of
Sciences of Ukraine, Institute of Software Systems of NAS Ukraine
Experimentalist Equal Protection
Elsewhere Garrett and Liebman have recounted that though James Madison is considered the Father of the Constitution, his progeny disappointed him because it was defenseless against self-government\u27s mortal disease -the oppression of minorities by local majorities-because the Framers rejected the radical structural approach to equal protection that Madison proposed. Nor did the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment\u27s Equal Protection Clause and federal courts enforcing it adopt a solution Madison would have considered effectual. This Article explores recent subconstitutional innovations in governance and public administration that may finally bring the nation within reach of the constitutional polity Madison envisioned To explain how Madisonian governance mechanisms can solve the problem of equal protection, the authors turn to the thinking of another homegrown practical philosopher who was ahead of his time, John Dewey. Dewey sets out what he calls an experimentalist problem-solving method for curing the equal protection ills Madison diagnosed In two core civil rights contexts, public school reform and workplace discrimination, solutions both Madisonian and Deweyan already point the way to an experimentalist equal protection regime that remains well within our reach. Such experimentalism may not only open our rigid, tepidly enforced equal protection doctrine to an evolving, problem-solving approach, but in the process transform democratic institutions and community
Code, space and everyday life
In this paper we examine the role of code (software) in the spatial formation of
collective life. Taking the view that human life and coded technology are folded into
one another, we theorise space as ontogenesis. Space, we posit, is constantly being
bought into being through a process of transduction – the constant making anew of a
domain in reiterative and transformative practices - as an incomplete solution to a
relational problem. The relational problem we examine is the ongoing encounter
between individuals and environment where the solution, to a greater or lesser extent,
is code. Code, we posit, is diversely embedded in collectives as coded objects, coded
infrastructure, coded processes and coded assemblages. These objects, infrastructure,
processes and assemblages possess technicity, that is, unfolding or evolutive power to
make things happen; the ability to mediate, supplement, augment, monitor, regulate,
operate, facilitate, produce collective life. We contend that when the technicity of
code is operationalised it transduces one of three forms of hybrid spatial formations:
code/space, coded space and backgrounded coded space. These formations are
contingent, relational, extensible and scaleless, often stretched out across networks of
greater or shorter length. We demonstrate the coded transduction of space through
three vignettes – each a day in the life of three people living in London, UK, tracing
the technical mediation of their interactions, transactions and mobilities. We then
discuss how code becomes the relational solution to five different classes of problems
– domestic living, travelling, working, communicating, and consuming
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