2,586 research outputs found
Opportunities for linking young surveyors across professional surveying member organisations and FIG
No full textUTSim2 validation
No full textThe Center for NDE (CNDE) at Iowa State University has a long history of developing physics models for NDE and packaging these models into simulation tools which make the modeling capabilities accessible to CNDEs industrial sponsors. Recent work at CNDE has led to the development of a new ultrasonic simulation package, UTSim2, which aims to continue this tradition of supporting industrial application of CNDE models. In order to meet this goal, UTSim2 has been designed as an extensible software package which can support previously-developed physics models as well as future models yet to be developed. Initial work has focused on the implementation of a Gauss-Hermite beam model, a paraxial approximation, which is implemented as part of the Thompson-Gray measurement model. This paper will present recent validation results and include comparisons against both previously-validated model output and newly-performed experiments.This proceeding may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This proceeding appeared in Grandin, Robert, and Tim Gray. "UTSim2 validation." AIP Conference Proceedings, 1806, no. 1 (2017): 150007, and may be found at DOI: 10.1063/1.4974731. Posted with permission.</p
Evaluating Citebase, an open access Web-based citation-ranked search and impact discovery service
No full textCitebase is a new citation-ranked search and impact discovery service that measures citations of scholarly research papers which are openly accessible on the Web, i.e. papers that are assessable continuously online. Other services, such as ResearchIndex, have emerged in recent years to offer citation indexing of Web research papers. In the first detailed user evaluation of an open access Web citation indexing service, Citebase has been evaluated by nearly 200 users from different backgrounds. The paper details the procedures used in the evaluation, and analyses the results of this study, which took place between June and October 2002. It was found that within the scope of its primary components, the search interface and services available from its rich bibliographic records, Citebase can be used simply and reliably for the purpose intended, and that it compares favourably with other bibliographic services. It is shown tasks can be accomplished efficiently with Citebase regardless of the background of the user. More data need to be collected and the process refined before it is as reliable for measuring citation impact of indexed papers. Better explanations and guidance are required for first-time users. Coverage is seen as a limiting factor, even though Citebase indexes over 200,000 papers from arXiv. Non-physicists were frustrated at the lack of papers from other sciences. The principle of citation searching of open access archives has thus been demonstrated and need not be restricted to current users. Since the evaluation, Citebase has become a featured service of the ArXiv physics eprint archives
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Putting the S-word back into Sustainability: Can we be more social?
No full textIn an era dominated by climate change debate and environmentalism
there is a real danger that the important ‘social’ pillar of sustainability
drops out of our vocabulary. This can happen at a variety of scales from
business level through to building and neighbourhood level regeneration
and development. Social sustainability should be at the heart of all
housing and mixed-use development but for a variety of reasons tends
to be frequently underplayed. The recent English city riots have brought
this point back sharply into focus. The relationships between people,
places and the local economy all matter and this is as true today as
it was in the late 19th century when Patrick Geddes, the great
pioneering town planner and ecologist, wrote of ‘place-work-folk’.
This paper, commissioned from Tim Dixon, explains what is meant by
social sustainability (and how it is linked to concepts such as social capital
and social cohesion); why the debate matters during a period when
‘localism’ is dominating political debate; and what is inhibiting its growth
and its measurement. The paper reviews best practice in post-occupancy
social sustainability metric systems, based on recent research undertaken
by the author on Dockside Green in Vancouver, and identifi es some of
the key operational issues in mainstreaming the concept within major
mixed-use projects. The paper concludes by offering a framework for the
key challenges faced in setting strategic corporate goals and objectives;
prioritising and selecting the most appropriate investments; and measuring
social sustainability performance by identifying the required data source
Tim (1979)
No full textA love story with a challenge. Based on the novel by the best-selling author Colleen McCullogh (the Thorn Birds), TIM is an Australian film which tells the story of the relationship between a handsome, young man (Mel Gibson), and an attractive businesswoman in her mid-40's (Piper Laurie). Tim is mentally retarded, but thanks to his understanding and loving home life he is able to move through life almost with a child s gentleness and content. When her gardener injures his back, Mary, Tim s next door neighbor hires him to do yardwork. Their friendship develops, first as teacher-student, then, as a more intimate relationship surfaces, the question of marriage arises. The responsibility of this love creates a challenge to be considered carefully. TIM is notable not only for the tenderness that permeates the film, but for the appeal and persuasiveness of two-time Academy Award nominee, Piper Laurie (Carrie, The Hustler), and Mel Gibson, star of The Road Warrior, Gallipoli and Lethal Weapon. An unusual love story. [description taken from cassette box
Accepting Optimally in Automated Negotiation with Incomplete Information (abstract)
No full textIntelligent SystemsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
What to bid and when to stop
No full textNegotiation is an important activity in human society, and is studied by various disciplines, ranging from economics and game theory, to electronic commerce, social psychology, and artificial intelligence. Traditionally, negotiation is a necessary, but also time-consuming and expensive activity. Therefore, in the last decades there has been a large interest in the automation of negotiation, for example in the setting of e-commerce. This interest is fueled by the promise of automated agents eventually being able to negotiate on behalf of human negotiators.Every year, automated negotiation agents are improving in various ways, and there is now a large body of negotiation strategies available, all with their unique strengths and weaknesses. For example, some agents are able to predict the opponent's preferences very well, while others focus more on having a sophisticated bidding strategy. The problem however, is that there is little incremental improvement in agent design, as the agents are tested in varying negotiation settings, using a diverse set of performance measures. This makes it very difficult to meaningfully compare the agents, let alone their underlying techniques. As a result, we lack a reliable way to pinpoint the most effective components in a negotiating agent.There are two major advantages of distinguishing between the different components of a negotiating agent's strategy: first, it allows the study of the behavior and performance of the components in isolation. For example, it becomes possible to compare the preference learning component of all agents, and to identify the best among them. Second, we can proceed to mix and match different components to create new negotiation strategies., e.g.: replacing the preference learning technique of an agent and then examining whether this makes a difference. Such a procedure enables us to combine the individual components to systematically explore the space of possible negotiation strategies.To develop a compositional approach to evaluate and combine the components, we identify structure in most agent designs by introducing the BOA architecture, in which we can develop and integrate the different components of a negotiating agent. We identify three main components of a general negotiation strategy; namely a bidding strategy (B), possibly an opponent model (O), and an acceptance strategy (A). The bidding strategy considers what concessions it deems appropriate given its own preferences, and takes the opponent into account by using an opponent model. The acceptance strategy decides whether offers proposed by the opponent should be accepted.The BOA architecture is integrated into a generic negotiation environment called Genius, which is a software environment for designing and evaluating negotiation strategies. To explore the negotiation strategy space of the negotiation research community, we amend the Genius repository with various existing agents and scenarios from literature. Additionally, we organize a yearly international negotiation competition (ANAC) to harvest even more strategies and scenarios. ANAC also acts as an evaluation tool for negotiation strategies, and encourages the design of negotiation strategies and scenarios.We re-implement agents from literature and ANAC and decouple them to fit into the BOA architecture without introducing any changes in their behavior. For each of the three components, we manage to find and analyze the best ones for specific cases, as described below. We show that the BOA framework leads to significant improvements in agent design by wining ANAC 2013, which had 19 participating teams from 8 international institutions, with an agent that is designed using the BOA framework and is informed by a preliminary analysis of the different components.In every negotiation, one of the negotiating parties must accept an offer to reach an agreement. Therefore, it is important that a negotiator employs a proficient mechanism to decide under which conditions to accept. When contemplating whether to accept an offer, the agent is faced with the acceptance dilemma: accepting the offer may be suboptimal, as better offers may still be presented before time runs out. On the other hand, accepting too late may prevent an agreement from being reached, resulting in a break off with no gain for either party. We classify and compare state-of-the-art generic acceptance conditions. We propose new acceptance strategies and we demonstrate that they outperform the other conditions. We also provide insight into why some conditions work better than others and investigate correlations between the properties of the negotiation scenario and the efficacy of acceptance conditions.Later, we adopt a more principled approach by applying optimal stopping theory to calculate the optimal decision on the acceptance of an offer. We approach the decision of whether to accept as a sequential decision problem, by modeling the bids received as a stochastic process. We determine the optimal acceptance policies for particular opponent classes and we present an approach to estimate the expected range of offers when the type of opponent is unknown. We show that the proposed approach is able to find the optimal time to accept, and improves upon all existing acceptance strategies.Another principal component of a negotiating agent's strategy is its ability to take the opponent's preferences into account. The quality of an opponent model can be measured in two different ways. One is to use the agent's performance as a benchmark for the model's quality. We evaluate and compare the performance of a selection of state-of-the-art opponent modeling techniques in negotiation. We provide an overview of the factors influencing the quality of a model and we analyze how the performance of opponent models depends on the negotiation setting. We identify a class of simple and surprisingly effective opponent modeling techniques that did not receive much previous attention in literature.The other way to measure the quality of an opponent model is to directly evaluate its accuracy by using similarity measures. We review all methods to measure the accuracy of an opponent model and we then analyze how changes in accuracy translate into performance differences. Moreover, we pinpoint the best predictors for good performance. This leads to new insights concerning how to construct an opponent model, and what we need to measure when optimizing performance.Finally, we take two different approaches to gain more insight into effective bidding strategies. We present a new classification method for negotiation strategies, based on their pattern of concession making against different kinds of opponents. We apply this technique to classify some well-known negotiating strategies, and we formulate guidelines on how agents should bid in order to be successful, which gives insight into the bidding strategy space of negotiating agents. Furthermore, we apply optimal stopping theory again, this time to find the concessions that maximize utility for the bidder against particular opponents. We show there is an interesting connection between optimal bidding and optimal acceptance strategies, in the sense that they are mirrored versions of each other.Lastly, after analyzing all components separately, we put the pieces back together again. We take all BOA components accumulated so far, including the best ones, and combine them all together to explore the space of negotiation strategies.We compute the contribution of each component to the overall negotiation result, and we study the interaction between components. We find that combining the best agent components indeed makes the strongest agents. This shows that the component-based view of the BOA architecture not only provides a useful basis for developing negotiating agents but also provides a useful analytical tool. By varying the BOA components we are able to demonstrate the contribution of each component to the negotiation result, and thus analyze the significance of each. The bidding strategy is by far the most important to consider, followed by the acceptance conditions and finally followed by the opponent model.Our results validate the analytical approach of the BOA framework to first optimize the individual components, and then to recombine them into a negotiating agent
Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author
No full textThe question motivating this review paper is, how can
computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn-
ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to
link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory,
and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional
question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in-
teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while
maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question
derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that,
as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency.
Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip-
ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based
on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are
reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the
conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question
that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional
question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in-
teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity
Nostalgia: content, triggers, functions
No full textSeven methodologically diverse studies addressed 3 fundamental questions about nostalgia. Studies 1 and 2 examined the content of nostalgic experiences. Descriptions of nostalgic experiences typically featured the self as a protagonist in interactions with close others (e.g., friends) or in momentous events (e.g., weddings). Also, the descriptions contained more expressions of positive than negative affect and often depicted the redemption of negative life scenes by subsequent triumphs. Studies 3 and 4 examined triggers of nostalgia and revealed that nostalgia occurs in response to negative mood and the discrete affective state of loneliness. Studies 5, 6, and 7 investigated the functional utility of nostalgia and established that nostalgia bolsters social bonds, increases positive self-regard, and generates positive affect. These findings demarcate key landmarks in the hitherto uncharted research domain of nostalgi
New Guinea: nature and culture of Earth's grandest island/ Bruce M. Beehler ; photography by Tim Laman ; Geoffrey S. Hope, technical editor.
No full textIncludes bibliographical references (pages 359-366) and index.An enthralling exploration of the biologically richest island on Earth, featuring more than 200 spectacular color images by award-winning National Geographic photographer Tim Laman In this beautiful book, Bruce Beehler, a renowned author and expert on New Guinea, and award-winning National Geographic photographer Tim Laman take the reader on an unforgettable journey through the natural and cultural wonders of the world's grandest island. Skillfully combining a wealth of information, a descriptive and story-filled narrative, and more than 200 stunning color photographs, the book unlocks New Guinea's remarkable secrets like never before. Lying between the Equator and Australia's north coast, and surrounded by the richest coral reefs on Earth, New Guinea is the world's largest, highest, and most environmentally complex tropical island-home to rainforests with showy rhododendrons, strange and colorful orchids, tree-kangaroos, spiny anteaters, ingenious bowerbirds, and spectacular birds of paradise. New Guinea is also home to more than a thousand traditional human societies, each with its own language and lifestyle, and many of these tribes still live in isolated villages and serve as stewards of the rainforests they inhabit. Accessible and authoritative, New Guinea provides a comprehensive introduction to the island's environment, animals, plants, and traditional rainforest cultures. Individual chapters cover the island's history of exploration ; geology ; climate and weather ; biogeography ; plant life ; insects, spiders, and other invertebrates ; freshwater fishes ; snakes, lizards, and frogs ; bird life ; mammals ; paleontology ; paleoanthropology ; cultural and linguistic diversity ; surrounding islands and reefs ; the pristine forest of the Foja Mountains ; village life ; and future sustainability. Complete with informative illustrations and a large, detailed map, New Guinea offers an enchanting account of the island's unequalled natural and cultural treasures.--Abbreviations and terms -- Map -- 1. Overview -- 2. History -- 3. Geology -- 4. Climatology -- 5. Biogeography -- 6. Botany -- 7. Invertebrate life -- 8. Ichthyology -- 9. Herpetology -- 10. Ornithology -- 11. Mammalogy -- 12. Paleontology -- 13. Paleoanthropology -- 14. People -- 15. Coastal marine -- 16. In the field -- 17. In the village -- 18. The future -- Acknowledgments -- References -- Index -- Author and principal photographer's biographies.1 online resource (375 pages
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