Increasingly automated procedure acquisition in dynamic systems

Procedures are widely used by operators for controlling complex dynamic systems. Currently, most development of such procedures is done manually, consuming a large amount of paper, time, and manpower in the process. While automated knowledge acquisition is an active field of research, not much attention has been paid to the problem of computer-assisted acquisition and refinement of complex procedures for dynamic systems. The Procedure Acquisition for Reactive Control Assistant (PARC), which is designed to assist users in more systematically and automatically encoding and refining complex procedures. PARC is able to elicit knowledge interactively from the user during operation of the dynamic system. We categorize procedure refinement into two stages: diagnosis - diagnose the failure and choose a repair - and repair - plan and perform the repair. The basic approach taken in PARC is to assist the user in all steps of this process by providing increased levels of assistance with layered tools. We illustrate the operation of PARC in refining procedures for the control of a robot arm

Challenging design perceptions in immersive virtual reality environments?

The potential and use of immersive virtual reality (IVR) technologies in performing design and construction activities has been widely addressed in the literature. However, research is only just beginning to emerge which examines the role of these technologies in use in ‘real-life’ practice situations, and seldom if ever addresses the way surprise and novelty impact both experience of these technologies, and of the designs they are representing. Adopting a practice based perspective to understanding the effect of immersive technologies on construction design work as used in concrete ‘real -life’ settings and as perceived by the practitioners involved, this study draws a specific focus on the concept of ‘surprise’ around using these technologies. The empirical case examined is a ‘real-life’ construction design project for a new hospital in the UK wherein a CAVE environment was used performing design review sessions during the bid preparation stage. The methodology draws on accessing participants’ view on their surprise emerging in the CAVE through reflective conversations oriented to engage the participants in retrospective reflection on their CAVE design experience. The analysis reveals that the element of surprise encountered by the participants both within making sense of the newly experienced technology, and within orienting to the design in the immersive environment played an important role in performing design review in the CAVE. The findings indicate that using CAVE as design media is not only enhancing or adding to an existing understanding of design through paper based or non-immersive digital representations, but it is also, and perhaps most significantly, challenging the participants’ understanding of the design as they experience the immersive, full scale version of it

The plot thickens: The aesthetic dimensions of a captivating mathematics lesson

We present an analysis of a sixth-grade mathematics lesson in which an aesthetically-rich moment of mathematical surprise, inspired by a decontextualized integer addition problem, spurred students to ask mathematical questions and actively sustain inquiry into the lesson’s central ideas. In order to understand how the unfolding mathematical content enabled this moment, we interpret the lesson as a mathematical story. Using this narrative framework, we describe the aesthetic dimensions of the story including its plot, density, coherence, and rhythm, and connect them to the unfolding mathematical content. This analysis demonstrates how these aesthetic elements of a lesson can be recognized and how they help explain the students’ productive engagement. This framework offers a potential tool for researchers and practitioners who seek to understand, design, and enact captivating mathematical experiences.Accepted manuscrip

Organizing as Improvisations (Methodological Temptations of Social Constructivism)

Academic communities in social sciences are still dominated byneo-positivist paradigm, but communities of practice developing socialconstructivism have started to redress paradigmatic imbalances.According to the latter man-made organizational reality is processualand saturated with sensemaking (Weick). Social constructivistssucceeded in reconstructing complex organizational disasters andcontributed to organizational innovation and change (for instance inthe wake of ICT challenges). They belong to postmodernist critics ofmodernity's failure to regulate social development and contribute to abetter understanding of organizing (e.g. implementing a new technologyor managing knowledge production) as patchworking and improvising. Inspite of discriminating practices, they survive in academiccommunities.critical theory;managerialism;improvisation;relativism;social constructivism

Proceedings

Proceedings of the 3rd Nordic Symposium on Multimodal Communication. Editors: Patrizia Paggio, Elisabeth Ahlsén, Jens Allwood, Kristiina Jokinen, Costanza Navarretta. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 15 (2011), vi+87 pp. © 2011 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio.no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle.net/10062/22532