The NITE XML Toolkit Meets the ICSI Meeting Corpus: Import, Annotation, and Browsing

Abstract. The NITE XML Toolkit (NXT) provides library support for working with multimodal language corpora. We describe work in progress to explore its potential for the AMI project by applying it to the ICSI Meeting Corpus. We discuss converting existing data into the NXT data format; using NXT’s query facility to explore the corpus; hand-annotation and automatic indexing; and the integration of data obtained by applying NXT-external processes such as parsers. Finally, we describe use of NXT as a meeting browser itself, and how it can be used to integrate other browser components.

The Oedipal Paradigm in Group Development

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68383/2/10.1177_104649647300400302.pd

Informal interaction in construction progress meetings

The small amount of published research into construction project meetings demonstrates some of the principal difficulties of investigating such sensitive business environments. Using the Bales Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) research method, data on group interaction were collected. A project outcome, namely whether the project was within contract budget, was used as a basis of enquiry between interaction patterns. Analysis was concerned with the socio‐emotional (relationship building) and the task‐based components of communication and the positive and negative socio‐emotional interaction characteristics. Socio‐emotional interaction was found to be significantly greater in the projects completed within budget. Socio‐emotional interaction is used to express feelings in relation to tasks and it serves as the flux that creates and sustains the group's social framework, which is crucial in a project environment. The data provide an indication of the importance of informal communication in the maintenance of relationships within project meetings.Interpersonal communication, interaction, meetings, project success,

Nurses' perceptions of the British hospital nursing officer

A major objective of the Report of die committee on senior nursing staff structure (Salmon Report) was to clarify the role of middle-management nurses. This paper analyses the views of 170 nurses in two general, one psychiatric, and one mental subnormality hospital, about nursing officers. A nursing officer was mentioned as the person with most say or influence over them by more nurses of all grades in the two non-general than in the two general hospitals, a difference explained in terms of the greater role of the medical model, and hence the sister consultant relationship in the latter. There were, however, also marked differences between the responses received from staff in the two general and between the two non-general hospitals in the perceived influence of the nursing officer which could not be explained in this way. Analysis of repertory grids suggested more problems in relations with senior nurses overall in the general hospitals. Nurses' descriptions of relationships with superiors suggested that nursing officer superiors were seen more as 'socio-emotional' whilst sisters and charge nurses were seen as 'instrumental' leaders. Asked to choose a person who had annoyed them at work, nurses chose a nursing officer more frequently than other grades of nurse, particularly in the non-general hospitals. Reasons for annoyance with a nursing officer included unwarranted interference, destructive criticism, and lack of specialized knowledge