Specifying and Realising Interactive Voice Services

VoiceXML (Voice Extended Markup Language) has become a major force in interactive voice services. However current approaches to creating Voice-XML services are rather low-level. Graphical representations of VoiceXML are close to the textual form of the language, and do not give a high-level description of a service. CRESS (Chisel Representation Employing Systematic Specification) can be used to give a more abstract, language-independent view of interactive voice services. CRESS is automatically compiled into VoiceXML for implementation, and into LOTOS (Language Of Temporal Ordering Specification) or SDL (Specification and Description Language) for automated analysis. The paper explains how CRESS is translated into VoiceXML and LOTOS

The Role of Trust and Interaction in GPS Related Accidents: A Human Factors Safety Assessment of the Global Positioning System (GPS)

The Global Positioning System (GPS) uses a network of orbiting and geostationary satellites to calculate the position of a receiver over time. This technology has revolutionised a wide range of safety-critical industries and leisure applications ranging from commercial fisheries through to mountain running. These systems provide diverse benefits; supplementing the users existing navigation skills and reducing the uncertainty that often characterises many route planning tasks. GPS applications can also help to reduce workload by automating tasks that would otherwise require finite cognitive and perceptual resources. However, the operation of these systems has been identified as a contributory factor in a range of recent accidents. Users often come to rely on GPS applications and, therefore, fail to notice when they develop faults or when errors occur in the other systems that use the data from these systems. Further accidents can stem from the ‘over confidence’ that arises when users assume automated warnings will be issued when they stray from an intended route. Unless greater attention is paid to the human factors of GPS applications then there is a danger that we will see an increasing number of these failures as positioning technologies are integrated into increasing numbers of application

Sharing Human-Generated Observations by Integrating HMI and the Semantic Sensor Web

Current “Internet of Things” concepts point to a future where connected objects gather meaningful information about their environment and share it with other objects and people. In particular, objects embedding Human Machine Interaction (HMI), such as mobile devices and, increasingly, connected vehicles, home appliances, urban interactive infrastructures, etc., may not only be conceived as sources of sensor information, but, through interaction with their users, they can also produce highly valuable context-aware human-generated observations. We believe that the great promise offered by combining and sharing all of the different sources of information available can be realized through the integration of HMI and Semantic Sensor Web technologies. This paper presents a technological framework that harmonizes two of the most influential HMI and Sensor Web initiatives: the W3C’s Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) with its semantic extension, respectively. Although the proposed framework is general enough to be applied in a variety of connected objects integrating HMI, a particular development is presented for a connected car scenario where drivers’ observations about the traffic or their environment are shared across the Semantic Sensor Web. For implementation and evaluation purposes an on-board OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) architecture was built, integrating several available HMI, Sensor Web and Semantic Web technologies. A technical performance test and a conceptual validation of the scenario with potential users are reported, with results suggesting the approach is soun

Future Open Mobile Services

The major barriers for the success of mobile data services are the lack of comprehensible mobile service architectures, their confusing business models and the complexity combined with the inconsistency of the technology enablers. This paper attempts to present a more structured and comprehensive analysis of the current mobile service architectures and their technology enablers. The paper starts with a thorough study of the evolution of mobile services and their business models, and a collection of expectations of the different actors, including the end-user. Next, starting from the original mobile services architecture and environment, an attempt to place the different technology enablers in relation to each other and in relation to their position in the mobile system, will be carried out. Each technology enabler together with their contribution in the enhancement of mobile services are then summarised in a complete and comprehensive way. The paper concludes with a recapitulation of the achievement of the state-of-the-art technology enablers and an identification of future improvements

The exclusion of exclusion in social capital

In this paper we argue that many scholars using the conceptual framework of social capital have largely ignored or minimised two important elements: closure and emergence. First we chart the rise of social capital (section two), then we outline some of the existing criticisms of social capital (section three). In section four, we offer a four-way classification system, based on the recognition of emergence and/or closure, of the most popular and widely utilised definitions of social capital. Such categorisation allows for the analysis of how social capital is understood across academic disciplines and how it has been taken up in the policy making arena. Finally we argue that it is only by conceptualising social capital as having emergent properties and as inherently exclusionary that it becomes theoretically and analytically useful to sociological enquiry.

Structural Change Through ‘Collective Action as Democratic Practice’: Linking Grassroots Democracy With Social Justice

Iris Marion Young argued that tackling structural injustices that arise from complex interactions requires collective, political action. Nevertheless, it remains unclear what kind of collective action leads to social justice and how. This article aims to fill this gap by developing the idea of ‘collective action as democratic practice’ that emphasises crafting democratic institutions from the bottom-up to re-orient structural processes in ways that resist oppression and domination. This departs from Young’s own account of collective action as engaging in communicative action to pressure powerful agents. It also departs from previous attempts to conceptualise structural change through the cumulative, rather than collective, actions of individuals changing their behaviours independently of one another. I argue that my approach is a more promising way to theorise collective action from a structural perspective. This approach has wider implications for understanding the outward-looking political potential of self-organised projects by citizens.Endo C.. Structural Change Through ‘Collective Action as Democratic Practice’: Linking Grassroots Democracy With Social Justice. Political Studies. © 2023 SAGE Publishing. DOI: 10.1177/00323217231182024

Quantum surveillance and 'shared secrets'. A biometric step too far? CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe, July 2010

It is no longer sensible to regard biometrics as having neutral socio-economic, legal and political impacts. Newer generation biometrics are fluid and include behavioural and emotional data that can be combined with other data. Therefore, a range of issues needs to be reviewed in light of the increasing privatisation of ‘security’ that escapes effective, democratic parliamentary and regulatory control and oversight at national, international and EU levels, argues Juliet Lodge, Professor and co-Director of the Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence at the University of Leeds, U