Evolving visual routines

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-117).by Michael Patrick Johnson.M.S

Routines and representations at work - observing the architecture of conceptual design

routines, representations, artifacts, product development, workplace observation, evolutionary economics, chip manufacturing

Designing assisted living technologies 'in the wild' : preliminary experiences with cultural probe methodology

Background There is growing interest in assisted living technologies to support independence at home. Such technologies should ideally be designed ‘in the wild’ i.e. taking account of how real people live in real homes and communities. The ATHENE (Assistive Technologies for Healthy Living in Elders: Needs Assessment by Ethnography) project seeks to illuminate the living needs of older people and facilitate the co-production with older people of technologies and services. This paper describes the development of a cultural probe tool produced as part of the ATHENE project and how it was used to support home visit interviews with elders with a range of ethnic and social backgrounds, family circumstances, health conditions and assisted living needs. Method Thirty one people aged 60 to 98 were visited in their homes on three occasions. Following an initial interview, participants were given a set of cultural probe materials, including a digital camera and the ‘Home and Life Scrapbook’ to complete in their own time for one week. Activities within the Home and Life Scrapbook included maps (indicating their relationships to people, places and objects), lists (e.g. likes, dislikes, things they were concerned about, things they were comfortable with), wishes (things they wanted to change or improve), body outline (indicating symptoms or impairments), home plan (room layouts of their homes to indicate spaces and objects used) and a diary. After one week, the researcher and participant reviewed any digital photos taken and the content of the Home and Life Scrapbook as part of the home visit interview. Findings The cultural probe facilitated collection of visual, narrative and material data by older people, and appeared to generate high levels of engagement from some participants. However, others used the probe minimally or not at all for various reasons including limited literacy, physical problems (e.g. holding a pen), lack of time or energy, limited emotional or psychological resources, life events, and acute illness. Discussions between researchers and participants about the materials collected (and sometimes about what had prevented them completing the tasks) helped elicit further information relevant to assisted living technology design. The probe materials were particularly helpful when having conversations with non-English speaking participants through an interpreter. Conclusions Cultural probe methods can help build a rich picture of the lives and experiences of older people to facilitate the co-production of assisted living technologies. But their application may be constrained by the participant’s physical, mental and emotional capacity. They are most effective when used as a tool to facilitate communication and development of a deeper understanding of older people’s needs

Evolving routines and strategic change. Learning in practice through knowledge and knowing in evolving routines

A travers l'évolution d'une routine à fort contenu de connaissance : l'évaluation par les pairs d'articles scientifiques, on analyse l'impact des pratiques concrètes pour faire évoluer les processus stratégiques de l'organisation.routine;ingénierie des connaissances;micro-pratiques;caractérisation

QYMSYM: A GPU-Accelerated Hybrid Symplectic Integrator That Permits Close Encounters

We describe a parallel hybrid symplectic integrator for planetary system integration that runs on a graphics processing unit (GPU). The integrator identifies close approaches between particles and switches from symplectic to Hermite algorithms for particles that require higher resolution integrations. The integrator is approximately as accurate as other hybrid symplectic integrators but is GPU accelerated.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

Artificial consciousness and the consciousness-attention dissociation

Artificial Intelligence is at a turning point, with a substantial increase in projects aiming to implement sophisticated forms of human intelligence in machines. This research attempts to model specific forms of intelligence through brute-force search heuristics and also reproduce features of human perception and cognition, including emotions. Such goals have implications for artificial consciousness, with some arguing that it will be achievable once we overcome short-term engineering challenges. We believe, however, that phenomenal consciousness cannot be implemented in machines. This becomes clear when considering emotions and examining the dissociation between consciousness and attention in humans. While we may be able to program ethical behavior based on rules and machine learning, we will never be able to reproduce emotions or empathy by programming such control systems—these will be merely simulations. Arguments in favor of this claim include considerations about evolution, the neuropsychological aspects of emotions, and the dissociation between attention and consciousness found in humans. Ultimately, we are far from achieving artificial consciousness

Strategizing a journal with PRP. How individual work become collective judgement

Cette communication met en évidence l'imbrication de phases d'élaboration individuelles et collectives dans un processus de jugement complexe et à fort contenu de connaissances : la revue d'articles par les pairs dans une revue scientifique. Un modèle est proposé qui illustre l'interdépendance et la complémentarité de ces phases dont dépend à la fois l'élaboration du jugement et son acceptation sociale.pratiques;routine;revue par les pairs;modélisation de processus collectif;validation sociale;validation organisationnelle;negociation

Exposing piaget's scheme: Empirical evidence for the ontogenesis of coordination in learning a mathematical concept

The combination of two methodological resources-natural-user interfaces (NUI) and multimodal learning analytics (MMLA)-is creating opportunities for educational researchers to empirically evaluate seminal models for the hypothetical emergence of concepts from situated sensorimotor activity. 76 participants (9-14 yo) solved tablet-based non-symbolic manipulation tasks designed to foster grounded meanings for the mathematical concept of proportional equivalence. Data gathered in task-based semi-structured clinical interviews included action logging, eye-gaze tracking, and videography. Successful task performance coincided with spontaneous appearance of stable dynamical gaze-path patterns soon followed by multimodal articulation of strategy. Significantly, gaze patterns included uncued non-salient screen locations. We present cumulative results to argue that these 'attentional anchors' mediated participants' problem solving. We interpret the findings as enabling us to revisit, support, refine, and elaborate on central claims of Piaget's theory of genetic epistemology and in particular his insistence on the role of situated motor-action coordination in the process of reflective abstraction

Galaxy Morphology from NICMOS Parallel Imaging

We present high resolution NICMOS images of random fields obtained in parallel to other HST observations. We present galaxy number counts reaching H=24. The H-band galaxy counts show good agreement with the deepest I- and K-band counts obtained from ground-based data. We present the distribution of galaxies with morphological type to H<23. We find relatively fewer irregular galaxies compared to an I-band sample from the Hubble Deep Field, which we attribute to their blue color, rather than to morphological K-corrections. We conclude that the irregulars are intrinsically faint blue galaxies at z<1.Comment: 13 pages, including 4 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter