What is knowledge and can it be managed?

Philosophical and linguistic debates about the nature of knowledge, information and data should be of more than academic interest to the practice of knowledge management. Grounds are proposed for showing that not all enterprise-critical knowledge can be captured and transferred by the use of data warehouses or knowledge repositories. A key difference highlighted is that between the natural execution of a task and the ability to talk about a task which is discussed as a distinction between ‘thrown’ and ‘breakdown’ behaviour. It is shown that this contrast renders even that which can be codified an incomplete representation of the knowledge concerned. Knowledge management must therefore concern itself with both tangible issues and artefacts (such as codified representations that can be secured) and intangible features such as the skills which people require to interpret and exploit those representations. Furthermore, as organisational structures and procedures themselves represent codified knowledge, they must be designed to be inherently changeable in order to permit the enterprise continuously to adapt as new knowledge is acquired.     

What do you seek?

~~What do you seek?     

What Are You Looking at?

In this paper we present a novel mechanism to obtain enhanced gaze estimation for subjects looking at a scene or an image. The system makes use of prior knowledge about the scene (e.g. an image on a computer screen), to define a probability map of the scene the subject is gazing at, in order to find the most probable location. The proposed system helps in correcting the fixations which are erroneously estimated by the gaze estimation device by employing a saliency framework to adjust the resulting gaze point vector. The system is tested on three scenarios: using eye tracking data, enhancing a low accuracy webcam based eye tracker, and using a head pose tracker. The correlation between the subjects in the commercial eye tracking data is improved by an average of 13.91%. The correlation on the low accuracy eye gaze tracker is improved by 59.85%, and for the head pose tracker we obtain an improvement of 10.23%. These results show the potential of the system as a way to enhance and self-calibrate different visual gaze estimation systems.     

What you train is what you get? Task requirements and training methods in complex problem-solving

The study measured the effect of tested training methods (direct instruction, guided exploration, and a combination of both) on the performance of 497 participants on qualitative and quantitative knowledge tests and control performance task under three complex problem (CP) conditions (easy, medium, difficult). All three methods proved equally suited to meeting the requirements of reproducing qualitative knowledge. For acquisition of quantitative knowledge, the direct-instruction method outperformed a method requiring participants themselves to infer solutions. The greater a CP’s intrinsic load due to parallel effects, the more effective direct instruction was at increasing control performance. The guided-exploration group and the combined-method group scored mixed results. The more difficult the CP, the more overall control performance deteriorated regardless of the training method.     

What can be learned from raw texts?

The growing availability of large on-line corpora encourages the study of word behaviour directly from accessible raw texts. However, the methods by which lexical knowledge should be extracted from plain texts is still a matter of debate and experimentation. In this paper we present an integrated tool for lexical acquisition from corpora, ARIOSTO, based on a hybrid methodology that combines typical NLP techniques, such as (shallow) syntax and semantic markers, with numerical processing. The lexical data extracted by this method, calledclustered association data, are used for a variety of interesting purposes, such as the detection of selectional restrictions, the derivation of syntactic ambiguity criteria and the acquisition of taxonomic relations.     

Convergence of crisis response strategy and source credibility: Who can you trust?

The purpose of this study was to explore how communicative responses and different sources of communication affect stakeholders’ perception of corporate reputation. The main goal was to explore the effects of crisis response strategy and source of crisis communication on organizational and speaker reputations. In a 2 × 2 scenario experiment, respondents judge corporate and speaker reputation of an imaginary organization. Apology as a strategy results in higher postcrisis reputation of both organization and speaker. However, the selection of the source has little effect on how people react to crisis response strategies. This means that a spokesperson can be as useful as a CEO which can be important if the CEO does not convey a positive presence on a screen.     

What can software engineers learn from manufacturing to improve software process and product?

The purpose of this paper is to provide the software engineer with tools from the field of manufacturing as an aid to improving software process and product quality. Process involves classical manufacturing methods, such as statistical quality control applied to product testing, which is designed to monitor and correct the process when the process yields product quality that fails to meet specifications. Product quality is measured by metrics, such as failure count occurring on software during testing. When the process and product quality are out of control, we show what remedial action to take to bring both the process and product under control. NASA Space Shuttle failure data are used to illustrate the process methods.     

What can a neuron learn with spike-timing-dependent plasticity?

Spiking neurons are very flexible computational modules, which can implement with different values of their adjustable synaptic parameters an enormous variety of different transformations F from input spike trains to output spike trains. We examine in this letter the question to what extent a spiking neuron with biologically realistic models for dynamic synapses can be taught via spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) to implement a given transformation F. We consider a supervised learning paradigm where during training, the output of the neuron is clamped to the target signal (teacher forcing). The well-known perceptron convergence theorem asserts the convergence of a simple supervised learning algorithm for drastically simplified neuron models (McCulloch-Pitts neurons). We show that in contrast to the perceptron convergence theorem, no theoretical guarantee can be given for the convergence of STDP with teacher forcing that holds for arbitrary input spike patterns. On the other hand, we prove that average case versions of the perceptron convergence theorem hold for STDP in the case of uncorrelated and correlated Poisson input spike trains and simple models for spiking neurons. For a wide class of cross-correlation functions of the input spike trains, the resulting necessary and sufficient condition can be formulated in terms of linear separability, analogously as the well-known condition of learnability by perceptrons. However, the linear separability criterion has to be applied here to the columns of the correlation matrix of the Poisson input. We demonstrate through extensive computer simulations that the theoretically predicted convergence of STDP with teacher forcing also holds for more realistic models for neurons, dynamic synapses, and more general input distributions. In addition, we show through computer simulations that these positive learning results hold not only for the common interpretation of STDP, where STDP changes the weights of synapses, but also for a more realistic interpretation suggested by experimental data where STDP modulates the initial release probability of dynamic synapses.     

What does the representation talk back to you?

Our research goal is to support designers with interactive systems by exploring the relationship among representations, their meanings, and their effects. This paper first outlines amplifying representational talkback (ART), a prototype system which we have developed to instantiate our research framework. We then reinterpret the essence of the ART system by illustrating the ART approach with other people's work in Semiotic Approaches to User Interface Design presented at the ACM CHI 2000 workshop. We identify critical aspects of the system from four points: (1) interactions with representations ‘I’ produced; (2) representations as indices for thoughts; (3) hands-on representations; and (4) limiting the automation. By having the ART system as an object-to-thing-with, we argue that communication with interactive computational tools had better been regarded as interaction with representations.     

What energy functions can be minimized via graph cuts?

In the last few years, several new algorithms based on graph cuts have been developed to solve energy minimization problems in computer vision. Each of these techniques constructs a graph such that the minimum cut on the graph also minimizes the energy. Yet, because these graph constructions are complex and highly specific to a particular energy function, graph cuts have seen limited application to date. In this paper, we give a characterization of the energy functions that can be minimized by graph cuts. Our results are restricted to functions of binary variables. However, our work generalizes many previous constructions and is easily applicable to vision problems that involve large numbers of labels, such as stereo, motion, image restoration, and scene reconstruction. We give a precise characterization of what energy functions can be minimized using graph cuts, among the energy functions that can be written as a sum of terms containing three or fewer binary variables. We also provide a general-purpose construction to minimize such an energy function. Finally, we give a necessary condition for any energy function of binary variables to be minimized by graph cuts. Researchers who are considering the use of graph cuts to optimize a particular energy function can use our results to determine if this is possible and then follow our construction to create the appropriate graph. A software implementation is freely available.     

What can the canonical controller in principle tell us?

Given a plant and a desired specification our goal is to construct a controller system which, when interconnected with the plant, yields a system that behaves like the desired specification. We can always construct the canonical controller introduced in van der Schaft (2003) [10]. For linear systems there exists a controller which when interconnected to the plant yields the desired behaviour if and only if the canonical controller is itself one such controller, see Vinjamoor and van der Schaft (2011) [4]. In this paper we extend this result to nonlinear systems. It turns out that one has to look at the canonical controller together with its subsystems. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a controller for a class of nonlinear systems. We end with examples which show that in certain cases looking at subsystems of the canonical controller also does not suffice.     

What input errors do you experience? Typing and pointing errors of mobile Web users

Small devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) are widely used to access the World Wide Web (Web). However, accessing the Web from small devices is affected by poor interface bandwidth, such as small keyboards and limited pointing devices. There is little empirical work investigating the input difficulties caused by such insufficient facilities, however, anecdotal evidence suggests that there is a link between able-bodied users of the mobile Web and motor impaired users of the Web on desktop computers. This being the case we could transfer the solutions which already exists for motor impaired users into the mobile Web and vice versa. This paper presents a user study that investigates the input errors of mobile Web users in both typing and pointing. The study identifies six types of typing errors and three types of pointing errors shared between our two user domains. We find that mobile Web users often confuse the different characters located on the same key, press keys that are adjacent to the target key, and miss certain key presses. When using a stylus, they also click in the wrong places, slide the stylus during multiple clicks, and make errors when dragging. Our results confirm that despite using different input devices, mobile Web users share common problems with motor impaired desktop users; and we therefore surmise that it will be beneficial to transfer available solutions between these user domains in order to address their common problems.     

Bootstrapping MDE development from ROS manual code: Part 2—Model generation and leveraging models at runtime

Software and Systems Modeling - Model-driven engineering (MDE) addresses central aspects of robotics software development. MDE could enable domain experts to leverage the expressiveness of models,...     

What can possibly go wrong? Anticipatory work in space operations

This paper explores how different forms of anticipatory work contribute to reliability in high-risk space operations. It is based on ethnographic field work, participant observation and interviews supplemented with video recordings from a control room responsible for operating a microgravity greenhouse at the International Space Station (ISS). Drawing on examples from different stages of a biological experiment on the ISS, we demonstrate how engineers, researchers and technicians work to anticipate and proactively mitigate possible problems. Space research is expensive and risky. The experiments are planned over the course of many years by a globally distributed network of organizations. Owing to the inaccessibility of the ISS, every trivial detail that could possibly cause a problem is subject to scrutiny. We discuss what we label anticipatory work: practices constituted of an entanglement of cognitive, social and technical elements involved in anticipating and proactively mitigating everything that might go wrong. We show how the nature of anticipatory work changes between planning and the operational phases of an experiment. In the planning phase, operators inscribe their anticipation into technology and procedures. In the operational phase, we show how troubleshooting involves the ability to look ahead in the evolving temporal trajectory of the ISS operations and to juggle pre-planned fixes along these trajectories. A key objective of this paper is to illustrate how anticipation is shared between humans and different forms of technology. Moreover, it illustrates the importance of including considerations of temporality in safety and reliability research.     

Architecture and operating system support for two-dimensional runtime partial reconfiguration

Reconfigurable machines based on field programmable gate array (FPGA) chips adapt to applications’ needs through hardware reconfiguration. Partial reconfiguration allows the configuration of a portion of a chip while the rest of the chip is busy working on tasks. This paper considers a two-dimensional partially reconfigurable FPGA chip that allows the dynamic swap in and out of circuit modules. Such a chip supports the concurrent execution of multiple applications or an application that is otherwise too large to fit. A challenging issue for 2-D runtime partial reconfiguration is how to support the efficient connection, or routing, between circuit modules or between modules and I/O pins, when those modules may be placed on any area of a chip. Because commercial chips are not efficient in 2-D runtime routing, a new FPGA architecture is proposed based on an array of clusters of configurable logic blocks and a mesh of segmented buses. To evaluate the runtime performance of the architecture, an operating system is specified and implemented which takes care of the scheduling, placement, and routing of circuits on the architecture. Simulation is used to evaluate the efficiency of the OS kernel and to determine the optimal cluster size of the architecture.     

“What can I(S) do for you?”: How technology enables service providers to elicit customers’ preferences and deliver personalized service

This research studies the effective use of an IT-enabled Customer Service System (CSS) in the hospitality sector. Drawing on Effective Use Theory, we study how digital representations of customers’ preferences support service providers in the service personalization process. Our model posits customers’ preferences elicitation as the antecedent of CSS’ effective use, which yields superior customer value. This representational perspective matches recent efforts to study customer value as cocreated by customers and service providers. Based on a longitudinal dataset of 118,647 hotel reservations, we explain how digital representations of customers’ preferences enable service providers to personalize service and increase customer value.     

Are you biting off more than you can chew? A case study on causes and effects of overscoping in large-scale software engineering

ContextScope management is a core part of software release management and often a key factor in releasing successful software products to the market. In a market-driven case, when only a few requirements are known a priori, the risk of overscoping may increase.ObjectiveThis paper reports on findings from a case study aimed at understanding overscoping in large-scale, market-driven software development projects, and how agile requirements engineering practices may affect this situation.MethodBased on a hypothesis of which factors that may be involved in an overscoping situation, semi-structured interviews were performed with nine practitioners at a large, market-driven software company. The results from the interviews were validated by six (other) practitioners at the case company via a questionnaire.ResultsThe results provide a detailed picture of overscoping as a phenomenon including a number of causes, root causes and effects, and indicate that overscoping is mainly caused by operating in a fast-moving market-driven domain and how this ever-changing inflow of requirements is managed. Weak awareness of overall goals, in combination with low development involvement in early phases, may contribute to ‘biting off’ more than a project can ‘chew’. Furthermore, overscoping may lead to a number of potentially serious and expensive consequences, including quality issues, delays and failure to meet customer expectations. Finally, the study indicates that overscoping occurs also when applying agile requirements engineering practices, though the overload is more manageable and perceived to result in less wasted effort when applying a continuous scope prioritization, in combination with gradual requirements detailing and a close cooperation within cross-functional teams.ConclusionThe results provide an increased understanding of scoping as a complex and continuous activity, including an analysis of the causes, effects, and a discussion on possible impact of agile requirements engineering practices to the issue of overscoping. The results presented in this paper can be used to identify potential factors to address in order to achieve a more realistic project scope.