Designing for Ballet Classes: Identifying and Mitigating Communication Challenges Between Dancers and Teachers

Dancer-teacher communication in a ballet class can be challenging: ballet is one of the most complex forms of movements, and learning happens through multi-faceted interactions with studio tools (mirror, barre, and floor) and the teacher. We conducted an interview-based qualitative study with seven ballet teachers and six dancers followed by an open-coded analysis to explore the communication challenges that arise while teaching and learning in the ballet studio. We identified key communication issues, including adapting to multi-level dancer expertise, transmitting and realigning development goals, providing personalized corrections and feedback, maintaining the state of flow, and communicating how to properly use tools in the environment. We discuss design implications for crafting technological interventions aimed at mitigating these communication challenges

The role of effective communication and trustworthiness in determining guests’ loyalty

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This study investigates the role of trustworthiness and effective communication in the development of guests’ loyalty within the hotel sector. We propose and test a conceptual model that differentiates between two types of loyalty: attitudinal and behavioral. As hotels can control and manage how they communicate their desired characteristics to guests, we posit effective communication and a hotel’s trustworthiness as the key concepts in building loyalty. This study reports on the findings of a study based on 322 hotel guests. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results reveal that implementing effective communication methods leads to a trustworthy image, which in turn has a positive impact on attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. This research provides hotel managers with strategic directions for cultivating guest loyalty

Open source bioimage informatics for cell biology

Significant technical advances in imaging, molecular biology and genomics have fueled a revolution in cell biology, in that the molecular and structural processes of the cell are now visualized and measured routinely. Driving much of this recent development has been the advent of computational tools for the acquisition, visualization, analysis and dissemination of these datasets. These tools collectively make up a new subfield of computational biology called bioimage informatics, which is facilitated by open source approaches. We discuss why open source tools for image informatics in cell biology are needed, some of the key general attributes of what make an open source imaging application successful, and point to opportunities for further operability that should greatly accelerate future cell biology discovery

Drawing as a versatile cognitive tool

Drawing is a cognitive tool that makes the invisible contents of mental life visible. Humans use this tool to produce a remarkable variety of pictures, from realistic portraits to schematic diagrams. Despite this variety and the prevalence of drawn images, the psychological mechanisms that enable drawings to be so versatile have yet to be fully explored. In this Review, we synthesize contemporary work in multiple areas of psychology, computer science and neuroscience that examines the cognitive processes involved in drawing production and comprehension. This body of findings suggests that the balance of contributions from perception, memory and social inference during drawing production varies depending on the situation, resulting in some drawings that are more realistic and other drawings that are more abstract. We also consider the use of drawings as a research tool for investigating various aspects of cognition, as well as the role that drawing has in facilitating learning and communication. Taken together, information about how drawings are used in different contexts illuminates the central role of visually grounded abstractions in human thought and behaviour

Using the Java Media Framework to build Adaptive Groupware Applications

Realtime audio and video conferencing has not yet been satisfactorily integrated into web-based groupware environments. Conferencing tools are at best only loosely linked to other parts of a shared working environment, and this is in part due to their implications for resource allocation and management. The Java Media Framework offers a promising means of redressing this situation. This paper describes an architecture for integrating the management of video and audio conferences into the resource allocation mechanism of an existing web-based groupware framework. The issue of adaptation is discussed and a means of initialising multimedia session parameters based on predicted QoS is described

Invest to Save: Report and Recommendations of the NSF-DELOS Working Group on Digital Archiving and Preservation

Digital archiving and preservation are important areas for research and development, but there is no agreed upon set of priorities or coherent plan for research in this area. Research projects in this area tend to be small and driven by particular institutional problems or concerns. As a consequence, proposed solutions from experimental projects and prototypes tend not to scale to millions of digital objects, nor do the results from disparate projects readily build on each other. It is also unclear whether it is worthwhile to seek general solutions or whether different strategies are needed for different types of digital objects and collections. The lack of coordination in both research and development means that there are some areas where researchers are reinventing the wheel while other areas are neglected. Digital archiving and preservation is an area that will benefit from an exercise in analysis, priority setting, and planning for future research. The WG aims to survey current research activities, identify gaps, and develop a white paper proposing future research directions in the area of digital preservation. Some of the potential areas for research include repository architectures and inter-operability among digital archives; automated tools for capture, ingest, and normalization of digital objects; and harmonization of preservation formats and metadata. There can also be opportunities for development of commercial products in the areas of mass storage systems, repositories and repository management systems, and data management software and tools.

Situational awareness and safety

This paper considers the applicability of situation awareness concepts to safety in the control of complex systems. Much of the research to date has been conducted in aviation, which has obvious safety implications. It is argued that the concepts could be extended to other safety critical domains. The paper presents three theories of situational awareness: the three-level model, the interactive sub-systems approach, and the perceptual cycle. The difference between these theories is the extent to which they emphasise process or product as indicative of situational awareness. Some data from other studies are discussed to consider the negative effects of losing situational awareness, as this has serious safety implications. Finally, the application of situational awareness to system design, and training are presented