Knowledge as Culture

Culture must not be seen as something that merely reflects an organization’s social reality: rather, it is an integral part of the process by which that reality is constructed. Knowledge management initiatives, per se, are not culture change projects; but, if culture stands in the way of what an organization needs to do, they must somehow impact

From Users' Intentions to IF-THEN Rules in the Internet of Things

In the Internet of Things era, users are willing to personalize the joint behavior of their connected entities, i.e., smart devices and online service, by means of trigger-action rules such as "IF the entrance Nest security camera detects a movement, THEN blink the Philips Hue lamp in the kitchen." Unfortunately, the spread of new supported technologies make the number of possible combinations between triggers and actions continuously growing, thus motivating the need of assisting users in discovering new rules and functionality, e.g., through recommendation techniques. To this end, we present HeyTAP², a semantic Conversational Search and Recommendation (CSR) system able to suggest pertinent IF-THEN rules that can be easily deployed in different contexts starting from an abstract user's need. By exploiting a conversational agent, the user can communicate her current personalization intention by specifying a set of functionality at a high level, e.g., to decrease the temperature of a room when she left it. Stemming from this input, HeyTAP² implements a semantic recommendation process that takes into account a) the current user’s intention, b) the connected entities owned by the user, and c) the user's long-term preferences revealed by her profile. If not satisfied with the suggestions, the user can converse with the system to provide further feedback, i.e., a short-term preference, thus allowing HeyTAP² to provide refined recommendations that better align with the her original intention. We evaluate HeyTAP² by running different offline experiments with simulated users and real-world data. First, we test the recommendation process in different configurations, and we show that recommendation accuracy and similarity with target items increase as the interaction between the algorithm and the user proceeds. Then, we compare HeyTAP² with other similar baseline recommender systems. Results are promising and demonstrate the effectiveness of HeyTAP² in recommending IF-THEN rules that satisfy the current personalization intention of the user

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

Equal access to health information : evaluating the use of a multilingual website in face-to-face consultations = Igualdad de acceso a la información sanitaria : evaluación del uso de un sitio web multilingüe en las consultas presenciales

In a 21st century superdiverse world, public service providers increasingly resort to technologies facilitating face-to-face consultations. In this paper, we evaluate the use and efficiency of a multilingual website in 11 video-recorded consultations of HIV/STI counselling. We address three central research questions: (i) How is the multilingual website embedded (or not) in the consultations? (ii) For what particular communicative purposes? (iii) How are the interactional routines shaped by the use of the multilingual website? The results show that the website is most efficient in consultations characterized by high levels of institution-specific arrangements of talk enabling varying tasks, e.g. announcing the taking of a HIV test, asking the patient’s consent for taking a HIV test, exploring sexual risk behaviours and infections, empowering the patient in the search for reliable information on sexual health related topics.En un contexto de superdiversidad, los proveedores de servicios públicos recurren cada vez más a tecnologías para facilitar los encuentros multilingües. En este artículo evaluamos el uso y la eficiencia de un sitio web mediante el análisis de 11 consultas sobre VIH/ETS. Abordamos tres preguntas de investigación: (i) ¿Cómo se incluye (o no) el sitio web multilingüe en las consultas? (ii) ¿Con qué fines comunicativos? (iii) ¿Qué efectos tiene el sitio web en las rutinas de interacción? Los resultados muestran que el sitio web es más eficiente en consultas con organizaciones conversacionales específicas y propias de la institución. Así, el sitio facilita comunicar la realización de una prueba VIH, solicitar el consentimiento del paciente para realizarla, explorar conductas sexuales de riesgo, y capacitar al paciente en la búsqueda de información fiable sobre temas relacionados con la salud sexual

Recommendations for designing conversational companion robots with older adults through foundation models

Companion robots are aimed to mitigate loneliness and social isolation among older adults by providing social and emotional support in their everyday lives. However, older adults’ expectations of conversational companionship might substantially differ from what current technologies can achieve, as well as from other age groups like young adults. Thus, it is crucial to involve older adults in the development of conversational companion robots to ensure that these devices align with their unique expectations and experiences. The recent advancement in foundation models, such as large language models, has taken a significant stride toward fulfilling those expectations, in contrast to the prior literature that relied on humans controlling robots (i.e., Wizard of Oz) or limited rule-based architectures that are not feasible to apply in the daily lives of older adults. Consequently, we conducted a participatory design (co-design) study with 28 older adults, demonstrating a companion robot using a large language model (LLM), and design scenarios that represent situations from everyday life. The thematic analysis of the discussions around these scenarios shows that older adults expect a conversational companion robot to engage in conversation actively in isolation and passively in social settings, remember previous conversations and personalize, protect privacy and provide control over learned data, give information and daily reminders, foster social skills and connections, and express empathy and emotions. Based on these findings, this article provides actionable recommendations for designing conversational companion robots for older adults with foundation models, such as LLMs and vision-language models, which can also be applied to conversational robots in other domains

Teach Me How to Improve My Argumentation Skills: A Survey on Feedback in Argumentation

The use of argumentation in education has been shown to improve critical thinking skills for end-users such as students, and computational models for argumentation have been developed to assist in this process. Although these models are useful for evaluating the quality of an argument, they oftentimes cannot explain why a particular argument is considered poor or not, which makes it difficult to provide constructive feedback to users to strengthen their critical thinking skills. In this survey, we aim to explore the different dimensions of feedback (Richness, Visualization, Interactivity, and Personalization) provided by the current computational models for argumentation, and the possibility of enhancing the power of explanations of such models, ultimately helping learners improve their critical thinking skills.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

To iPad or not to iPad: Mobile Language Learning with Middle-School Children

This paper follows up on Rocca (2015a), providing additional new data from the experimental group in seventh grade. This is a small-scale study that comes under the purview of participant observation research. The continuation of the study for another year evened out the comparison between the two groups and dispelled concerns about vitiating variables affecting participant behavior, such as Hawthorne effect and novelty effect. The control group in sixth and seventh grade was compared to the experimental group in the same two grades. Both groups shared the same curriculum, the same teacher and the same amount of teaching periods. However, they differed in class size, with the experimental group being almost double the size of the control group, and most importantly, the equipment of iPads for the experimental group, which belonged to the school-sponsored 1:1 program. Results show that the iPadded group, generally using ‘Notability’, performed at a higher level for two consecutive years across the four language skills, especially in aural-oral skills where a ceiling effect was also observed. In general, the utilization of the mobile technology transformed classroom practices, enhancing the input the students were exposed to as well as the output they produced, empowering them with tools to control and monitor their work. The conclusion argues that technology plays a role in making both teaching and learning more mobile and therefore more sustainable

Intelligent environments: a manifesto

We explain basic features of an emerging area called Intelligent Environments. We give a short overview on how it has developed, what is the current state of the art and what are the challenges laying ahead. The aim of the article is to make aware the Computer Science community of this new development, the differences with previous dominant paradigms and the opportunities that this area offers to the scientific community and society

MapSense: Design and Field Study of Interactive Maps for Children Living with Visual Impairments

We report on the design process leading to the creation of MapSense, a multi-sensory interactive map for visually impaired children. We conducted a formative study in a specialized institute to understand children’s educational needs, their context of care and their preferences regarding interactive technologies. The findings (1) outline the needs for tools and methods to help children to acquire spatial skills and (2) provide four design guidelines for educational assistive technologies. Based on these findings and an iterative process, we designed and deployed MapSense in the institute during two days. It enables collaborations between children with a broad range of impairments, proposes reflective and ludic scenarios and allows caretakers to customize it as they wish. A field experiment reveals that both children and caretakers considered the system successful and empowering