Pro-active Meeting Assistants : Attention Please!

This paper gives an overview of pro-active meeting assistants, what they are and when they can be useful. We explain how to develop such assistants with respect to requirement definitions and elaborate on a set of Wizard of Oz experiments, aiming to find out in which form a meeting assistant should operate to be accepted by participants and whether the meeting effectiveness and efficiency can be improved by an assistant at all

Collaborative Nonverbal Interaction within Virtual Environments

Abstract:Current virtual environments are predominantly visual-spatial, which allows their ‘inhabitants’ the display, either in a conscious or unconscious way, of nonverbal cues during interaction, such as gaze direction, deictic gestures or location. This interchange of nonverbal messages enriches interaction while supports mutual comprehension, fundamental for collaborative work and therefore particularly important in a multiuser virtual environment, that is, a Collaborative Virtual Environment. Different techniques, the media involvement, and automatic detection related collaborative nonverbal interaction are here discussed.Keywords: Collaborative Virtual Environment, nonverbal communication, collaborative interactio

Public-private partnerships

The public sector—government—has not always been successful in providing adequate services, especially in poorer, more remote areas. Since the 1990s, the private sector has been used to deliver financing opportunities and improve services in conjunction with the public sector through public–private partnerships. Water and sanitation has been one sector addressed globally through different types of these contractual agreements

Investigation into the effects of project delivery methods on LEED targets

Due to the environmental impacts of buildings and the increased demand for sustainable construction, it is essential that the construction industry can effectively deliver green buildings. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) created the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system to aid in the construction and evaluation of green buildings. The project delivery method, chosen by the owner, can affect the achievement of project targets (e.g., budget, schedule, LEED certification). The most utilized project delivery method is the traditional Design-Bid-Build (DBB). Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is an emerging project delivery method that has gained attention for the potential to deliver buildings more effectively (i.e. reaching or exceeding project targets) than previous methods. Currently, there is a lack of IPD research regarding green building. This research compared the most widely used DBB method to the IPD to identify the superior project delivery method for constructing a LEED certified building. Sixteen case studies of both DBB and IPD commercial construction projects in the U.S were studied. The research found that the important contributors to the achievement of LEED certification goals include early involvement of key project participants, collaboration, and use of technology. Although these factors can be utilized with both DBB and IPD project delivery methods, IPD facilitates the use of technology and incentivizes early participant involvement and collaboration. Thus, IPD provides more assurance that project performance targets (e.g., LEED certification) will be met or exceeded. This research recommends the adoption and utilization of IPD as the method of delivery for LEED projects in order to minimize the impact of buildings on the environment

Ripples of Hope: How Ordinary People Resist Repression Without Violence

In Ripples of Hope, Robert M. Press tells the stories of mothers, students, teachers, journalists, attorneys, and many others who courageously stood up for freedom and human rights against repressive rulers — and who helped bring about change through primarily nonviolent means. Global in application and focusing on Kenya, Liberia and Sierra Leone, this tribute to the strength of the human spirit also breaks new ground in social movement theories, showing how people on their own or in small groups can make a difference.https://aquila.usm.edu/faculty_books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Full Proceedings

Papers, abstracts and proceedings of the Third Annual Himalayan Policy Research Conference, Thursday, October 16, 2008, Madison Concourse Hotel and Governors\u27 Club, Preconference Venue of the 37th South Asian Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madiso

Performance Implications of Stage-Wise Lead User Participation in Software Development Problem Solving

The problem-solving view of new product development sees the innovation process as a series of problem-solving loops broken down into three stages: problem detection, analysis and removal. We link this framework with lead user-driven innovation regarding software and show that effort by lead users (LUs) in each stage of the innovation problem solving process is, in varying degrees, associated with the source code’s quality, the productivity of the development process and the software’s popularity. We also test whether front loading the problem solving process is associated with development performance and we find that front loading is associated with increased code quality but decreased development productivity. Empirical tests are carried out with data from open source software projects. Findings potentially impact the design and management of online communities to help product development

Justification and Interlaced Knowledge at ATLAS, CERN

We report on a longitudinal study of the emergence of the ATLAS detector, a complex technological system developed at CERN, Geneva. Our data show that the coordination of initial architectural choices was driven by cycles of contestation and justification that resulted in the creation of what we term interlaced knowledge-pockets of shared knowledge interwoven within and across subsystem communities at ATLAS. We also found that these justifications were possible because of the presence of a boundary infrastructure that served as a common substrate of knowledge for all ATLAS participants. Together, the boundary infrastructure and interlaced knowledge enabled participants to make co-oriented technological choices, address latent interdependencies, and minimize the incidence and severity of glitches when integrating the various subsystems

School of Industrial and Labor Relations

Cornell University Courses of Study Vol. 102 2010/201