The 1988 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence

This publication comprises the papers presented at the 1988 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence held at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland on May 24, 1988. The purpose of this annual conference is to provide a forum in which current research and development directed at space applications of artificial intelligence can be presented and discussed. The papers in these proceedings fall into the following areas: mission operations support, planning and scheduling; fault isolation/diagnosis; image processing and machine vision; data management; modeling and simulation; and development tools/methodologies

The Processing of Emotional Sentences by Young and Older Adults: A Visual World Eye-movement Study

Carminati MN, Knoeferle P. The Processing of Emotional Sentences by Young and Older Adults: A Visual World Eye-movement Study. Presented at the Architectures and Mechanisms of Language and Processing (AMLaP), Riva del Garda, Italy

Ubiquitous Integration and Temporal Synchronisation (UbilTS) framework : a solution for building complex multimodal data capture and interactive systems

Contemporary Data Capture and Interactive Systems (DCIS) systems are tied in with various technical complexities such as multimodal data types, diverse hardware and software components, time synchronisation issues and distributed deployment configurations. Building these systems is inherently difficult and requires addressing of these complexities before the intended and purposeful functionalities can be attained. The technical issues are often common and similar among diverse applications. This thesis presents the Ubiquitous Integration and Temporal Synchronisation (UbiITS) framework, a generic solution to address the technical complexities in building DCISs. The proposed solution is an abstract software framework that can be extended and customised to any application requirements. UbiITS includes all fundamental software components, techniques, system level layer abstractions and reference architecture as a collection to enable the systematic construction of complex DCISs. This work details four case studies to showcase the versatility and extensibility of UbiITS framework’s functionalities and demonstrate how it was employed to successfully solve a range of technical requirements. In each case UbiITS operated as the core element of each application. Additionally, these case studies are novel systems by themselves in each of their domains. Longstanding technical issues such as flexibly integrating and interoperating multimodal tools, precise time synchronisation, etc., were resolved in each application by employing UbiITS. The framework enabled establishing a functional system infrastructure in these cases, essentially opening up new lines of research in each discipline where these research approaches would not have been possible without the infrastructure provided by the framework. The thesis further presents a sample implementation of the framework on a device firmware exhibiting its capability to be directly implemented on a hardware platform. Summary metrics are also produced to establish the complexity, reusability, extendibility, implementation and maintainability characteristics of the framework.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grants - EP/F02553X/1, 114433 and 11394

More than the Sum of the Parts: Shared Representations in Collaborative Design Interaction

This dissertation presents an inquiry into the roles played by persistent, shared external representations in design collaboration. It advances an understanding of the active participation of these representations—including drawings, models and prototypes—in the collective reasoning of design teams. Interaction was analyzed using a novel network formalization to portray the accomplishment of essential work in this context. A synthesis of analyses over different time scales provides the basis for a comprehensive notion of representational support for design interaction, and a diagnostic for problems that may arise with inadequate support and/or disparities of access and participation. Data were collected during working sessions of a leading, “real-time” concurrent design practice at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, notable for accelerated performance and the use of technologically-advanced, shared representations. Fine-grained analysis of this activity offers insights to complement those obtained from laboratory studies of individual designers, ad-hoc groups, and organizationally-situated ethnographic accounts. A microanalytic technique was developed to assess dynamic interaction between participants and representations. The resulting, novel formalization of an actor-discourse network makes concepts derived from actor-network theory operational to understand the work accomplished through design interaction. Network visualization and structural metrics highlight patterns associated with productivity in the design process. On this basis, indicators for the quality of design conversation are proposed: these include the degree of participants’ engagement, the development of design discourse, the integration of representations and the consolidation of commitment to action. Specific roles and situational attributes of representations are identified that foster and sustain advances in collective design reasoning. The dissertation advances a view of design activity in terms of temporally-evolving constellations of issues and actors, in which representations act to stabilize and anchor expanding networks of commitment. Directions for further work include technical enhancement to network metrics and visualization, extension of the actor-discourse network formalization and further exploration of theoretical and practical issues pertaining to representational actors in social situations

The role of functional, radiological and self-reported measures in predicting clinical outcome in spondylotic cervical radiculopathy

BackgroundCervical radiculopathy (CR) results in significant disability and pain and is commonly treated conservatively with satisfactory clinical outcomes. However, a considerable number of patients require surgery to prevent irreversible neurological damage or when pain is unremitting. Both conservative and surgical treatments are characterised by a plethora of strategies and interventions, making comparisons between treatment groups a difficult task.The ability to predict the likely outcomes of treatment is important to clinicians involved in treatment and serves as an important basis for health policy, resource management and core knowledge essential for patients to have an informed consent when being offered both conservative and surgical interventions. Generic and condition specific measures in clinical conditions may have a role in predicting clinical outcome after treatment. Common measures employed in the examination and evaluation of cervical radiculopathy patients include self reported measures of pain and disability, measures of impairment and function, neurological and radiological evidence of the disease. Unfortunately, few studies exist that provide knowledge in understanding factors associated with the presentation of cervical radiculopathy and the ensuing long-term clinical outcome.The objective of this thesis was to address the limited understanding of the impairment measures and prognostic outcomes associated with cervical radiculopathy in an Indian population for both surgical and conservative treatment strategies. In these aspects, this thesis was original.AimThe principal aim of this thesis was to evaluate the role of clinical (pain, disability), functional (posture, cervical ROM), radiological (radiographic segmental curvature and segmental movements in the sagittal plane), socio-demographic and lifestyle factors (age, gender, BMI, work characteristics, physical activity, smoking, life-style changes, duration of symptoms, co-morbidities and number of previous episodes) in predicting clinical outcome (pain and disability) at one year in a cervical radiculopathy cohort which was treated conservatively or surgically. To support and substantiate the primary aim, associations, relationships, differences between the outcome variables at different measurement times, and effects of treatment were determined. Furthermore, a series of studies were undertaken examining key assessments of cervical spine impairment to further support the primary clinical outcome study.MethodsThe main element of the thesis derived clinical data from a sample of convenience of 163 patients (109 patients in the conservative group and 54 in the surgical group). All measurements were done at baseline, that is, prior to any form of intervention, and then at pre-determined intervals until a one year follow-up period in both treatment groups. After baseline assessments, the conservative group underwent medical treatment and physiotherapy whereas the surgery group underwent surgery, and post-surgery, were given ergonomic advice and exercises. An intention to treat analysis approach was adopted for dropouts (14% at 12 months).A large series of other studies were undertaken prior to and in parallel with the main clinical trial (Agarwal et al. 2005 a,b,c; Agarwal et al. 2006). Emphasis was placed on tester reliability for each measure used in this study and consequently methodological studies establishing reliability and validity of measures were carried out and published. Cervical range of motion, a key measure of impairment and neck functions, frequently used by physiotherapists as an assessment tool, was analysed to determine the effects of age, gender and repeat measurements over time in asymptomatic individuals (n = 219) as well as differences in range of motion between asymptomatics and patients with cervical radiculopathy. During the initial course of this research, it became evident that the pain and disability questionnaire (Neck Pain and Disability scale) in the English language was not applicable to a section of the patient population. This was therefore translated into Hindi (the national language of India).The outcome variables with their respective measuring instruments were neck pain and arm pain (101 Numerical Pain Rating Scale), pain and disability (NPAD), depression (NPAD factor 3 scores), posture (head neck angle), cervical range of movement (Spin-T goniometer), radiographic sagittal segmental curvature (Posterior Tangent Method) and radiographic sagittal segmental motion (Penning’s method). Demographics and lifestyle factors consisted of either continuous or dichotomous variables.A range of parametric and non-parametric tests analysed the correlations and differences between outcome variables at different times of measurements as well as determined treatment efficacy. The Clinical Prediction Rule (CPR) analysis was used to determine the group of predictor variables which could result in a successful outcome in a CR cohort, following conservative or surgical intervention. The NPAD (English and Hindi) was the outcome criterion for the CPR analysis of this study with a score of 55°. Three of the four predictors generated a 9.8 fold increase (likelihood ratio 95% CI 3.3 to 29.8) for the individual to be a responder, with a post-test probability of success at 93%.Surgery (3 months): Age 55°. Two of the four predictors generated a 16-fold increase (likelihood ratio 95% CI 2.3 to 112) for the individual to be a responder and the post test probability of success increased to 94% from a pre-test probability of success at 50%.ConclusionIn conclusion, this study was able to provide original and long-term assessments of cervical spine movement characteristics as well as translating the primary outcome into Hindi. The clinical finding was able to identify predictor clusters that provide level IV evidence of predicting outcomes at different timelines for cervical radiculopathy for both conservative and surgically treated patients. The use of these predictors in future studies may help in decision making for the appropriate type of treatment and expected outcome in CR patients