Job Satisfaction in Newspaper Ad Departments

The results of a study indicate that newspaper advertising employees are not as dissatisfied as their editorial counterparts but that they are the least satisfied of any group in the advertising industry

Learning about End-User Development for Smart Homes by "Eating Our Own Dog Food"

SPOK is an End-User Development Environment that permits people to monitor, control, and configure smart home services and devices. SPOK has been deployed for more than 4 months in the homes of 5 project team members for testing and refinement, prior to longitudinal experiments in the homes of families not involved in the project. This article reports on the lessons learned in this initial deployment

Influences that Went to the Making of Edmund Burke in His Career as an Orator

Edmund Burke looms before us through the mist of years as a prodigy of eloquence and knowledge; devoted to the good or his country; an unselfish and disinterested patriot; a sage whose moral wisdom shines far beyond his own generation and century. He was the most remarkable man who has taken part in public affairs, from the thrilling days of our Revolution down to the present time. The life and principles of so great, a man are a fascinating study to all admirers of the work he accomplished. If history has any interest or value, it is to show the influences that combined to produce the great Celt, Edmund Burke, whose impress on his own age and on the ages that have succeeded, is still a marvel and a cause of universal admiration

Defining the Pose of any 3D Rigid Object and an Associated Distance

The pose of a rigid object is usually regarded as a rigid transformation, described by a translation and a rotation. However, equating the pose space with the space of rigid transformations is in general abusive, as it does not account for objects with proper symmetries -- which are common among man-made objects.In this article, we define pose as a distinguishable static state of an object, and equate a pose with a set of rigid transformations. Based solely on geometric considerations, we propose a frame-invariant metric on the space of possible poses, valid for any physical rigid object, and requiring no arbitrary tuning. This distance can be evaluated efficiently using a representation of poses within an Euclidean space of at most 12 dimensions depending on the object's symmetries. This makes it possible to efficiently perform neighborhood queries such as radius searches or k-nearest neighbor searches within a large set of poses using off-the-shelf methods. Pose averaging considering this metric can similarly be performed easily, using a projection function from the Euclidean space onto the pose space. The practical value of those theoretical developments is illustrated with an application of pose estimation of instances of a 3D rigid object given an input depth map, via a Mean Shift procedure

Multimodal Observation and Interpretation of Subjects Engaged in Problem Solving

In this paper we present the first results of a pilot experiment in the capture and interpretation of multimodal signals of human experts engaged in solving challenging chess problems. Our goal is to investigate the extent to which observations of eye-gaze, posture, emotion and other physiological signals can be used to model the cognitive state of subjects, and to explore the integration of multiple sensor modalities to improve the reliability of detection of human displays of awareness and emotion. We observed chess players engaged in problems of increasing difficulty while recording their behavior. Such recordings can be used to estimate a participant's awareness of the current situation and to predict ability to respond effectively to challenging situations. Results show that a multimodal approach is more accurate than a unimodal one. By combining body posture, visual attention and emotion, the multimodal approach can reach up to 93% of accuracy when determining player's chess expertise while unimodal approach reaches 86%. Finally this experiment validates the use of our equipment as a general and reproducible tool for the study of participants engaged in screen-based interaction and/or problem solving

Deep learning investigation for chess player attention prediction using eye-tracking and game data

This article reports on an investigation of the use of convolutional neural networks to predict the visual attention of chess players. The visual attention model described in this article has been created to generate saliency maps that capture hierarchical and spatial features of chessboard, in order to predict the probability fixation for individual pixels Using a skip-layer architecture of an autoencoder, with a unified decoder, we are able to use multiscale features to predict saliency of part of the board at different scales, showing multiple relations between pieces. We have used scan path and fixation data from players engaged in solving chess problems, to compute 6600 saliency maps associated to the corresponding chess piece configurations. This corpus is completed with synthetically generated data from actual games gathered from an online chess platform. Experiments realized using both scan-paths from chess players and the CAT2000 saliency dataset of natural images, highlights several results. Deep features, pretrained on natural images, were found to be helpful in training visual attention prediction for chess. The proposed neural network architecture is able to generate meaningful saliency maps on unseen chess configurations with good scores on standard metrics. This work provides a baseline for future work on visual attention prediction in similar contexts

Transitional Curricula in Leading Research and Land Grant Universities

In the years to come changes in the earth’s climate, human demographics and resource availability will necessitate revolutions in what we eat, where we live, how we travel, and how we produce the energy needed to power our society. While these transitions may be inevitable, we have some measure of control over when and how we adapt. Such efforts will require long-term thinking of a type seldom provided by those focused on the next election or quarterly report. Much of the responsibility to inform and promote action on these issues will fall on academia. The main objective of this project is to find out whether or not our nation’s colleges and universities are up to this task. To that end I have researched the course offerings at dozens of institutions of higher education in a search for curricula related to issues of sustainability. Relevant courses from all types of schools and departments are stored in an online database that includes links to hundreds of courses and departments across the United States. This data makes it easier to see what types of courses are being offered and what types of programs and departments are offering them. It also allows us to see which universities are taking the lead in developing these new types of courses and which are falling behind. Furthermore, it enables us to study the level of interaction between those offering instruction in different relevant disciplines. Our findings may be used to make suggestions for improved course offerings at this and other universities, as information gathered from schools that offer great quality and quantity of transitional curricula will be available to those institutions that do not

Diverse Magmatic Evolutionary Trends of the Northern Andes Unraveled by Paleocene to Early Eocene Detrital Zircon Geochemistry

The Paleocene-early Eocene continental magmatic arc (PECMA) in the Northern Andes is an example of arc magmatism following a major collisional event. This arc formed after the arc-continent collision between the Caribbean Plate and the South American continental margin at ca. 72 Ma. We used detrital zircon LA-ICP-MS and CA-ID-TIMS geochronology and geochemistry to complement the limited plutonic record of the PECMA and better characterize the PECMA\u27s magmatic evolution. Zircon geochronology and their respective trace element geochemistry were analyzed from Paleocene-early Eocene strata of the Bogotá Formation in the foreland region. Our results show that after the collision of the Caribbean Plate, the magmas in the PECMA differentiated under a thick continental crust with limited subduction input at ca. 66 Ma. By 62–50 Ma, scattered patterns of Hf, U, U/Yb, and Yb/Gd ratios in detrital zircons suggest the existence of contrasting magmatic inputs attributed to different depths of crustal fractionation, varied temperatures of crystallization, and significant mantle and subduction inputs. These diverse magmatic patterns reflect the evolution of the continental crust. We proposed that oblique convergence and strike-slip tectonics favored contrasting crustal architectures along the continental margin while local lithosphere dripping from a previously thickened crust promoted the formation of hot magmas under a thick continental crust

Religious preference and worldly success: A comparison of Protestants and Catholics

The problem, of theory construction toward a sociological understanding of the religious-economic relationship has relied to a great extent upon the work of a German social scientist, Max Weber.1 Historical observations made by Weber, which described a meaningful relationship between Protestantism and modern industrial capitalism,2 stimulated scholars from a number of fields to continue investigation of this relationship. The Weberian thesis advanced the position that religious and economic phenomena within a society were mutually interdependent. More specifically, Weber was concerned with the \u27economic ethics of a religion\u273 in relation to the economic institution. This relationship was considered as a factor which gave rise to modern capitalism. The present study attempted to explore and delineate the nature of the religious-economic relationship in contemporary society

Analysis of airborne imaging spectrometer data for the Ruby Mountains, Montana, by use of absorption-band-depth images

Airborne Imaging Spectrometer-1 (AIS-1) data were obtained for an area of amphibolite grade metamorphic rocks that have moderate rangeland vegetation cover. Although rock exposures are sparse and patchy at this site, soils are visible through the vegetation and typically comprise 20 to 30 percent of the surface area. Channel averaged low band depth images for diagnostic soil rock absorption bands. Sets of three such images were combined to produce color composite band depth images. This relative simple approach did not require extensive calibration efforts and was effective for discerning a number of spectrally distinctive rocks and soils, including soils having high talc concentrations. The results show that the high spectral and spatial resolution of AIS-1 and future sensors hold considerable promise for mapping mineral variations in soil, even in moderately vegetated areas