Questions and answers - copyright for work based learning

This Q and A provides an overview of copyright law and how it applies in a variety of scenarios relevant to work based learning (WBL) providers.

Patterns of Impact Resulting from a 'Sit Less, Move More' Web-Based Program in Sedentary Office Employees

Purpose Encouraging office workers to 'sit less and move more' encompasses two public health priorities. However, there is little evidence on the effectiveness of workplace interventions for reducing sitting, even less about the longer term effects of such interventions and still less on dual-focused interventions. This study assessed the short and mid-term impacts of a workplace web-based intervention (Walk@WorkSpain, W@WS; 2010-11) on self-reported sitting time, step counts and physical risk factors (waist circumference, BMI, blood pressure) for chronic disease. Methods Employees at six Spanish university campuses (n=264; 42 +/- 10 years; 171 female) were randomly assigned by worksite and campus to an Intervention (used W@WS; n=129; 87 female) or a Comparison group (maintained normal behavior; n=135; 84 female). This phased, 19-week program aimed to decrease occupational sitting time through increased incidental movement and short walks. A linear mixed model assessed changes in outcome measures between the baseline, ramping (8 weeks), maintenance (11 weeks) and follow-up (two months) phases for Intervention versus Comparison groups. Results A significant 2 (group) x 2 (program phases) interaction was found for self-reported occupational sitting (F[3]=7.97, p=0.046), daily step counts (F[3]=15.68, p=0.0013) and waist circumference (F[3]=11.67, p=0.0086). The Intervention group decreased minutes of daily occupational sitting while also increasing step counts from baseline (446 +/- 126; 8,862 +/- 2,475) through ramping (+425 +/- 120; 9,345 +/- 2,435), maintenance (+422 +/- 123; 9,638 +/- 3,131) and follow-up (+414 +/- 129; 9,786 +/- 3,205). In the Comparison group, compared to baseline (404 +/- 106), sitting time remained unchanged through ramping and maintenance, but decreased at follow-up (-388 +/- 120), while step counts diminished across all phases. The Intervention group significantly reduced waist circumference by 2.1cms from baseline to follow-up while the Comparison group reduced waist circumference by 1.3cms over the same period. Conclusions W@WSis a feasible and effective evidence-based intervention that can be successfully deployed with sedentary employees to elicit sustained changes on "sitting less and moving more".

Assessment of existing information on Atlantic coastal fish habitats: development of a web-based spatial bibliography, query tools, and data summaries

The primary objective of this project, “the Assessment of Existing Information on Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat”, is to inform conservation planning for the Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership (ACFHP). ACFHP is recognized as a Partnership by the National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP), whose overall mission is to protect, restore, and enhance the nation’s fish and aquatic communities through partnerships that foster fish habitat conservation. This project is a cooperative effort of NOAA/NOS Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA) Biogeography Branch and ACFHP. The Assessment includes three components; 1. a representative bibliographic and assessment database, 2. a Geographical Information System (GIS) spatial framework, and 3. a summary document with description of methods, analyses of habitat assessment information, and recommendations for further work. The spatial bibliography was created by linking the bibliographic table developed in Microsoft Excel and exported to SQL Server, with the spatial framework developed in ArcGIS and exported to GoogleMaps. The bibliography is a comprehensive, searchable database of over 500 selected documents and data sources on Atlantic coastal fish species and habitats. Key information captured for each entry includes basic bibliographic data, spatial footprint (e.g. waterbody or watershed), species and habitats covered, and electronic availability. Information on habitat condition indicators, threats, and conservation recommendations are extracted from each entry and recorded in a separate linked table. The spatial framework is a functional digital map based on polygon layers of watersheds, estuarine and marine waterbodies derived from NOAA’s Coastal Assessment Framework, MMS/NOAA’s Multipurpose Marine Cadastre, and other sources, providing spatial reference for all of the documents cited in the bibliography. Together, the bibliography and assessment tables and their spatial framework provide a powerful tool to query and assess available information through a publicly available web interface. They were designed to support the development of priorities for ACFHP’s conservation efforts within a geographic area extending from Maine to Florida, and from coastal watersheds seaward to the edge of the continental shelf. The Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership has made initial use of the Assessment of Existing Information. Though it has not yet applied the AEI in a systematic or structured manner, it expects to find further uses as the draft conservation strategic plan is refined, and as regional action plans are developed. It also provides a means to move beyond an “assessment of existing information” towards an “assessment of fish habitat”, and is being applied towards the National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP) 2010 Assessment. Beyond the scope of the current project, there may be application to broader initiatives such as Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (IEAs), Ecosystem Based Management (EBM), and Marine Spatial Planning (MSP).

Effects of the user model on simulation-based learning of dialogue strategies

Over the past decade, a variety of user models have been proposed for user simulation-based reinforcement-learning of dialogue strategies. However, the strategies learned with these models are rarely evaluated in actual user trials and it remains unclear how the choice of user model affects the quality of the learned strategy. In particular, the degree to which strategies learned with a user model generalise to real user populations has not be investigated. This paper presents a series of experiments that qualitatively and quantitatively examine the effect of the user model on the learned strategy. Our results show that the performance and characteristics of the strategy are in fact highly dependent on the user model. Furthermore, a policy trained with a poor user model may appear to perform well when tested with the same model, but fail when tested with a more sophisticated user model. This raises significant doubts about the current practice of learning and evaluating strategies with the same user model. The paper further investigates a new technique for testing and comparing strategies directly on real human-machine dialogues, thereby avoiding any evaluation bias introduced by the user model. © 2005 IEEE.

Model based learning of sigma points in unscented Kalman filtering

The unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is a widely used method in control and time series applications. The UKF suffers from arbitrary parameters necessary for a step known as sigma point placement, causing it to perform poorly in nonlinear problems. We show how to treat sigma point placement in a UKF as a learning problem in a model based view. We demonstrate that learning to place the sigma points correctly from data can make sigma point collapse much less likely. Learning can result in a significant increase in predictive performance over default settings of the parameters in the UKF and other filters designed to avoid the problems of the UKF, such as the GP-ADF. At the same time, we maintain a lower computational complexity than the other methods. We call our method UKF-L. ©2010 IEEE.