AirTransNote: An Instant Note Sharing and Reproducing System to Support Students Learning

We developed AirTransNote, an interactive learning system augmented by digital pens and PDAs for each student. All notes written on regular paper sheets are immediately digitized and transmitted to teacher's PC and recognized to generate feedback. Also since the students' drawings can be projected on a screen, our system helps students to recall their thought process. We conducted an experimental lecture session at a senior high school, and observed student responses while using AirTransNote

Capturing window attributes for extending web browsing history records

We propose a method to enhance web browsing history records by considering browsing window attributes. The browsing window attributes means properties of web browser window such as size, location, z-order, activated status, etc. We often open multiple web documents for each window and browse the contents through handling these windows at the same time. Since a series of the window attributes describe the user’s browsing activities, we exploit the attributes to enrich the browsing records to help the user find previously visited web pages

A support system for context awareness in a group home using sound cues

In this study, we have proposed an audio notification system that indicates the real-time situation of persons in a group home environment without visual surveillance. In this paper, we present an approach to predict the events in a real living environment and notify them using sound cues. The notification system comprises a predicting and a notification function. The predicting function estimates a personpsilas real-time situation using a Bayesian network and sensed information; the notification function informs recipients of the predicted situation and the confidence level of the prediction by means of sound cues. We use natural sounds as sound cues, considering the use of our system at a group home of elderly people. We estimate the usefulness of our method under a simple test environment. The results show that the method is useful for monitoring persons by employing sound effects that are appropriate to usage environments. As a future study, we will conduct a field test on an implemented system and improve it for practical use in a group home

Approaches to Assessing Public Concerns: Building Linked Data for Public Goals and Criteria Extracted from Textual Content

Part 3: Online DeliberationInternational audienceThe importance of public involvement in Japanese regional societies is increasing because they currently face complicated and ongoing social issues due to the post-maturity stage of these societies. Since citizens who have beneficial awareness or knowledge are not always experts on relevant social issues, assessing and sharing public concerns are needed to reduce barriers to public participation. We propose two approaches to assess public concerns. The first is building a linked open data set by extracting public goals for a specific social issue aimed at by citizens or agents from articles or public opinions. This paper deals with hierarchical goals and subgoals for recovery and revitalization from the Great East Japan Earthquake manually extracted from related articles. The data set can be used for developing services to match citizens and agents who aim at similar goals to facilitate collaboration. The second approach is building a linked data set by extracting assessment criteria for a specific social issue from public opinions. This paper deals with candidate terms that potentially represent such criteria for a specific public project automatically extracted from clusters of citizens’ opinions. The data set can be used as evidence for policy-making about the target project

Social media and communication processes at work: Evidence from China

Web 2.0 applications, such as instant messengers and other social media platforms, are fast becoming ubiquitous at work, yet their impact on performance is poorly understood. We investigate these impacts in the Chinese workplace, analyzing data from 179 organizational employees. We find that vertical and horizontal communication contribute significantly to individual, team and organizational performance, with high levels of variance explained. We provide empirical evidence for how Web 2.0 enables organizations to reach out to collaborators and business partners, thereby boosting individual productivity, team collaboration and organizational agility. We discuss the implications of the research for scholars and practicing managers, also identifying future research directions