Report from Dagstuhl Seminar 23031: Frontiers of Information Access Experimentation for Research and Education

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 23031 ``Frontiers of Information Access Experimentation for Research and Education'', which brought together 37 participants from 12 countries. The seminar addressed technology-enhanced information access (information retrieval, recommender systems, natural language processing) and specifically focused on developing more responsible experimental practices leading to more valid results, both for research as well as for scientific education. The seminar brought together experts from various sub-fields of information access, namely IR, RS, NLP, information science, and human-computer interaction to create a joint understanding of the problems and challenges presented by next generation information access systems, from both the research and the experimentation point of views, to discuss existing solutions and impediments, and to propose next steps to be pursued in the area in order to improve not also our research methods and findings but also the education of the new generation of researchers and developers. The seminar featured a series of long and short talks delivered by participants, who helped in setting a common ground and in letting emerge topics of interest to be explored as the main output of the seminar. This led to the definition of five groups which investigated challenges, opportunities, and next steps in the following areas: reality check, i.e. conducting real-world studies, human-machine-collaborative relevance judgment frameworks, overcoming methodological challenges in information retrieval and recommender systems through awareness and education, results-blind reviewing, and guidance for authors.Comment: Dagstuhl Seminar 23031, report

A Samaritan State Revisited

Canada’s foreign aid programs are an area of ongoing interest, yet there is little knowledge of Canada’s 70-year aid history, the historic forces that have shaped Canadian aid policy, and the many complex factors that affect Canada’s future foreign aid policy. A Samaritan State Revisited brings together a refreshing group of emerging and leading scholars to reflect on the history of Canada’s overseas development aid. Addressing the broad ideological and institutional origins of Canada’s official development assistance in the 1950s and specific themes in its evolution and professionalization since the 1960s, this collection is the first to explore Canada’s history with foreign aid with this level of interrogative detail. Extending from the 1950s to the present and covering Canadian aid to all regions of the Global South, from South and Southeast Asia to Latin America and Africa, these essays embrace a variety of approaches and methodologies ranging from traditional, archival-based research to textual and image analysis, oral history, and administrative studies. A Samaritan State Revisited weaves together a unique synthesis of governmental and non-governmental perspectives, providing a clear and readily accessible explanation of the forces that have shaped Canadian foreign aid polic

Assessment Methods for Advanced Masonry Work Systems

The physically strenuous and demanding nature of construction tasks exposes workers to injury risks, can reduce productivity, and contributes to undesirable early retirement. In spite of these risks, human performance in the workplace is often managed by over-simplified standards. Complex construction sites require continuous manual labor intervention. Site complexity also preclude objective and reliable quantification of labor exposure to ergonomic risk factors. It also impedes the introduction of automation and robotics in construction industry despite recent advancements in other construction technologies. The overarching goal of this dissertation is to identify opportunities for human-centric advanced work assessment systems that can 1) objectively and simultaneously evaluate ergonomic risk levels and productivity in construction tasks involving heavy material handling, 2) effectively identify safe and productive working postures and techniques that workers develop as they gain experience, and 3) evaluate the impact of introducing new, semi-automated work systems on health and productivity in a construction context. To achieve these goals, this research adopts wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) based motion capture systems as means of data collection in construction worksites. It analyzes the resultant whole-body kinematic data using analytical tools including combined biomechanical-productivity analysis, rule-based postural ergonomic risk assessment, statistical analysis, and data clustering algorithms. This research specifically focuses its efforts on the masonry field, one of the most labor-intensive trades in construction. Over the span of four years, 45 masons at various levels of experience participated in field experiments within the framework of this study. The acquired data was used to develop automated ergonomic assessment systems to evaluate risk levels via various rule-based assessment tools as well as biomechanical analysis. This approach enabled us to objectively evaluate ergonomic risk level in construction tasks, then analyze the relationships among body loads, experience, and work methods to quantitatively investigate differences in joint loads between experts and apprentices. Furthermore, motion data-driven identification of expert work technique was proposed as a guide to proper working methods and apprentice training. These approaches allowed us to identify proper work techniques adopted by experts and suggested the utilization of expert' techniques in apprentice training to reduce the prevalence of occupational injuries and to improve productivity. Leveraging these insights, this study proposed a systematic and objective methodology to assess the value of a semi-automated work system in a construction context. The proposed methodology fills an important technology gap by representing a proactive approach for the evaluation of semi-automated work systems in terms of reduction in exposure to health risks and improvements of productivity. Ultimately, the present research seeks to maximize occupational performance by minimizing the level of human efforts in construction