3,134 research outputs found
A Conversation with Martin Bradbury Wilk
Martin Bradbury Wilk was born on December 18, 1922, in Montr\'{e}al,
Qu\'{e}bec, Canada. He completed a B.Eng. degree in Chemical Engineering in
1945 at McGill University and worked as a Research Engineer on the Atomic
Energy Project for the National Research Council of Canada from 1945 to 1950.
He then went to Iowa State College, where he completed a M.Sc. and a Ph.D.
degree in Statistics in 1953 and 1955, respectively. After a one-year post-doc
with John Tukey, he became Assistant Director of the Statistical Techniques
Research Group at Princeton University in 1956--1957, and then served as
Professor and Director of Research in Statistics at Rutgers University from
1959 to 1963. In parallel, he also had a 14-year career at Bell Laboratories,
Murray Hill, New Jersey. From 1956 to 1969, he was in turn Member of Technical
Staff, Head of the Statistical Models and Methods Research Department, and
Statistical Director in Management Sciences Research. He wrote a number of
influential papers in statistical methodology during that period, notably
testing procedures for normality (the Shapiro--Wilk statistic) and probability
plotting techniques for multivariate data. In 1970, Martin moved into higher
management levels of the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) Company. He
occupied various positions culminating as Assistant Vice-President and Director
of Corporate Planning. In 1980, he returned to Canada and became the first
professional statistician to serve as Chief Statistician. His accomplishments
at Statistics Canada were numerous and contributed to a resurgence of the
institution's international standing. He played a crucial role in the
reinstatement of the Cabinet-cancelled 1986 Census.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-STS272 the Statistical
Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Functional Accessibility on the Web: How the AODA Fails End Users
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA) impacts the way persons with disabilities are able to access goods and services in Ontario. With more than 3 million people living with disabilities in Ontario, it is essential to enact the legislation to create equity. The AODA equates “obtainable” with “accessible” without recognizing the stark contrast between having access to something and being able to keep informed because the content is created with persons with disabilities in mind. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of the AODA’s website compliance standards under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as required by Ontario Regulation 191/11, section 14 (O. Reg. 191/11s.14). Through an examination of the compliance requirements in comparison to the “Five E” Approach to Policy Analysis it is apparent that the AODA does not create equity or equality, but rather is a tool for the Ontario Government to demonstrate that it is moving toward making Ontario accessible for persons with disabilities. The “Five E” Approach to Policy Analysis of the AODA demonstrates that O. Reg. 191/11 s.14 does not have the proper mechanisms in place to ensure equity in Ontario with regards to websites and internet usage. It is hoped that this study will increase awareness about the discrepancy between what is written in the AODA and the type of accessibility needed for persons with disabilities in Ontario so the Government can move forward towards true equity
On the Collaboration of an Automatic Path-Planner and a Human User for Path-Finding in Virtual Industrial Scenes
This paper describes a global interactive framework enabling an automatic path-planner and a user to collaborate for finding a path in cluttered virtual environments. First, a collaborative architecture including the user and the planner is described. Then, for real time purpose, a motion planner divided into different steps is presented. First, a preliminary workspace discretization is done without time limitations at the beginning of the simulation. Then, using these pre-computed data, a second algorithm finds a collision free path in real time. Once the path is found, an haptic artificial guidance on the path is provided to the user. The user can then influence the planner by not following the path and automatically order a new path research. The performances are measured on tests based on assembly simulation in CAD scenes
Northern Sparks
An “episode of light” in Canada sparked by Expo 67 when new art forms, innovative technologies, and novel institutional and policy frameworks emerged together.
Understanding how experimental art catalyzes technological innovation is often prized yet typically reduced to the magic formula of “creativity.” In Northern Sparks, Michael Century emphasizes the role of policy and institutions by showing how novel art forms and media technologies in Canada emerged during a period of political and social reinvention, starting in the 1960s with the energies unleashed by Expo 67. Debunking conventional wisdom, Century reclaims innovation from both its present-day devotees and detractors by revealing how experimental artists critically challenge as well as discover and extend the capacities of new technologies.
Century offers a series of detailed cross-media case studies that illustrate the cross-fertilization of art, technology, and policy. These cases span animation, music, sound art and acoustic ecology, cybernetic cinema, interactive installation art, virtual reality, telecommunications art, software applications, and the emergent metadiscipline of human-computer interaction. They include Norman McLaren's “proto-computational” film animations; projects in which the computer itself became an agent, as in computer-aided musical composition and choreography; an ill-fated government foray into interactive networking, the videotext system Telidon; and the beginnings of virtual reality at the Banff Centre. Century shows how Canadian artists approached new media technologies as malleable creative materials, while Canada undertook a political reinvention alongside its centennial celebrations. Northern Sparks offers a uniquely nuanced account of innovation in art and technology illuminated by critical policy analysis
Automated pebble mosaic stylization of images
Digital mosaics have usually used regular tiles, simulating the historical
"tessellated" mosaics. In this paper, we present a method for synthesizing
pebble mosaics, a historical mosaic style in which the tiles are rounded
pebbles. We address both the tiling problem, where pebbles are distributed over
the image plane so as to approximate the input image content, and the problem
of geometry, creating a smooth rounded shape for each pebble. We adapt SLIC,
simple linear iterative clustering, to obtain elongated tiles conforming to
image content, and smooth the resulting irregular shapes into shapes resembling
pebble cross-sections. Then, we create an interior and exterior contour for
each pebble and solve a Laplace equation over the region between them to obtain
height-field geometry. The resulting pebble set approximates the input image
while presenting full geometry that can be rendered and textured for a highly
detailed representation of a pebble mosaic
Weather and Climate Information for Tourism
The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change
Weather and Climate Information for Tourism
The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change
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