236 research outputs found
FY 2014 DVRPC Annual Report
Each fiscal year, DVRPC is responsible for issuing an annual report that summarizes the programs and projects that comprise the annual planning work program. This Annual Report features highlights of the Commission's many programs, a message from the Executive Director and Board Chair, a listing of Board members and committees, a financial summary, and a specific project or program in each county and major city in the region
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Exploiting Problem Solving to Select Information to Include in Dialogues between Cooperating Agents
When agents cooperate to solve complex problems in the realworld, they must choose which information to communicate from the mass of information that might affect the problem. A speaker should communicate the information that will be most helpful to the other agent. However, the speaker may not have a great deal of knowledge about the other. In addition, the speaker is also involved in reasoning about the collaborative problem solving task. So, processing that is done solely to select information will be taken from the resources available to work on the primary problem. In this paper we present preliminary work on a new approach to selecting information that should be included in a dialogue. Our approach uses the speaker's knowledge of its own problem solving to determine how useful some piece of information might be to other agents. Consequently, the speaker can make its decision to include information in the dialogue using no additional knowledge and few additional computational resources beyond those required to reason about the primary problem solving task. We suggest heuristics which translate problem solving into estimates of how useful information will be for others
RIA: Selecting Information to Include in Cooperative Task — Oriented Dialogues
The goal of this project was to delevop a technique for selecting information to volunteer in problem solving dialogues. The technique was to create usefulness ratings for information based on the problem solving of the agent that may communicate the information. Heuristics translate specific problem solving activities into contributions to the overall usefulness rating for the information. To this end, our objectives included determining the type of information that should be included in dialogues and implementing heuristics
Clinical utility of the WeeFIM as a mandated outcome measure: Navigating the needs of the organization, client and clinician
Local outpatient pediatric occupational therapists expressed a need for evidence to support the use of the Functional Independence Measure for Children (WeeFIM) as a universal measure for evaluations in their facility. We summarized the evidence addressing the psychometrics of the WeeFIM and a comparison instrument, the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI). We ultimately made a recommendation for the PEDI based on its better evidence history for children with autism. The collaborating clinicians received an organizational mandate to implement use of the WeeFIM. We surveyed them to better understand their knowledge translation process. Themes from surveys were inserted into the Knowledge Translation Access Process model (MacDermid & Graham, 2009), and we documented the steps clinicians took to apply the evidence in spite of organizational barriers. Survey results and analysis of knowledge translation suggest that the standardization of the evaluation process is highly valued by clinicians and any shortcomings of the WeeFIM that were identified in the published evidence can be addressed by the use of additional measures
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Making Conversation Flexible
The goals of the speakers are the motivating force behind a conversation. The differences in these goals, and their relative priorities, account for many of the differences between conversations. In order to be easily understood, however, the resulting conversation must be constrained by the language conventions shared by speaker and hearer. In this paper we describe how the use of schemas for conversational control can be made flexible by integrating the priorities of a system's goals into the process of selecting the next utterance. Our ideas are implemented in a system called JUDIS (Turner & Cullingford, 1989), a natural language interface for an advice-giving system
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Using Conversation MOPs to Integrate Intention and Convention in Natural Language Processing
The Agent Institute: Develop an Infrastructure for Agent-Based Research and Development for the State of Maine
This award provides support to establish The Agent Institute (AI), an organization anticipated to become self-sustaining and generally enhance research and development for the State of Maine. The AI will promote interactions between industry and foster computer-technology research, specifically in software development and software-hardware relationships in the area of robotics. Industrial applications in extreme or hazardous environments will be emphasized because agent-based systems are designed to read/sense environmental information, make decisions, and take actions based on the information sensed and processed. The award provides an initial two years of salary support to hire an executive director and an administrative assistant. These individuals will be responsible for developing a series of workshops designed to bring researchers and developers with interests and expertise in agent-based systems together in collaborative projects. Education and outreach efforts will also be part of the AI\u27s mission to bring knowledge about this area to K-12 educators and schools with the goal of encouraging students toward careers in agent-based systems and high technology in general
Multi-Modal Spatial Querying
This project investigates the use of two concurrent communication channels, graphics and speech, to achieve a successful interaction between a person and a geographic information system (GIS). The objective is to construct a multi-modal spatial query language in which users interact with a geographic database by drawing sketches of the desired configuration, while simultaneously talking about the spatial objects and the spatial relations drawn. This study will increase our understanding of multi-modal spatial interactions, and will lead to improved strategies for intelligent integration and processing of such multi-modal spatial queries in a GIS. The key to this interaction is the exploitation of complementary or redundant information present in both graphical and verbal descriptions of the same spatial scenes. A multiple-resolution model of spatial relations is used to capture the essential aspects of a sketch and its corresponding verbal description. The model stresses topological properties, such as containment and neighborhood, and considers metrical properties, such as distance and directions, as refinements where necessary. This model enables the retrieval of similar, not only exact, matches between a spatial query and a geographic database. Such new methods of multi-modal spatial querying and spatial similarity retrieval will empower experts as well as novice users to perform easier spatial searches, ultimately providing new user communities access to spatial databases
The Association between Neuropsychological Functioning and Cognitive Engagement and Their Associations with Reading Achievement in Pediatric Brain Tumor Survivors
Background: Survivorship rates in children with pediatric brain tumors have increased over the last few decades. During the same time period there has been a dramatic increase in the presence of cognitive late effects in survivors (Landier et al., 2004). Neuropsychological late effects are demonstrated across a variety cognitive abilities and may be responsible for impairments in academic functioning seen in survivors (Robinson et al., 2010). Declines in pediatric brain tumor survivors’ academic achievement include a variety of subjects such as math, spelling and reading; however, reading ability is more vulnerable to impairment in this population (Mabbott et al., 2005). In healthy peers, reading achievement is predicted by a variety of neuropsychological processes that survivors often demonstrate deficits in, including intelligence, attention, processing speed, working memory and executive functioning (Best, Miller, & Naglieri, 2011; Evans, Floyd, McGrew, & Leforgee, 2001). While an established link exists between neurocognitive functioning and reading achievement, little is known about how cognitive functioning specifically impacts reading ability. Rose (2005) theorized that cognitive functioning impairs learning if one is unable to use skillful strategies in order to recognize, interpret or select important incoming information. This theory is conceptually related to cognitive engagement, a derivative of school engagement that involves cognitive strategies used during learning (Greene, Miller, Crowson, Duke, & Akey, 2004). Aims: The current study examined the association between neuropsychological functioning and reading achievement in children that recently completed treatment for a brain tumor. More specifically, the study examined associations between working memory, executive functioning and reading achievement. Additionally, indirect effects of working memory and executive functioning on reading achievement through cognitive engagement were evaluated. Methods: This study utilized data collected as part of a longitudinal study of pediatric brain tumor survivors following the completion of tumor-directed treatment. The study sought to identify associations between survivor neuropsychological functioning and indicators of survivor, caregiver and family functioning. Child participants completed a neuropsychological assessment battery along with psychosocial measures immediately following completion of tumor-directed treatment, then at 6 months post-treatment, and again at 1 year post-treatment. Caregivers completed neurobehavioral and psychosocial questionnaires. Results: Lower executive function abilities as assessed by parent-report significantly predicted reduced use of rehearsal- and organization-based cognitive strategies for learning. In contrast, working memory did not reveal any associations with cognitive engagement. Neither overall, nor strategy specific, cognitive engagement mediated the association between executive functioning/working memory and reading achievement. Conclusions: Pediatric brain tumor survivors who display difficulties in executive functioning may also exhibit less use of rehearsal- and organization-based cognitive learning strategies. Coaching of learning strategies implemented by teachers may prove useful in promoting the use of other advantageous learning strategies (e.g., elaboration and critical thinking), and also suppress the use of shallow learning strategies (rehearsal).M.S., Psychology -- Drexel University, 201
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