WAIS Seminar:Evaluating the Cognitive Side of Information Interaction

Abstract In this talk, I'll focus on the work we've been doing on evaluating the cognitive side of dealing with information resources and increasingly complex user interfaces. While we can build increasingly powerful user interfaces, they often come at the cost of simple design and ease of use. I'll describe two specific studies: 1) work on the ORCHID project focused on measuring mental workload during tasks using fNIRS (a blood-oxygen-based brain scanner), and 2) a evaluation metric for measuring how much people learn during tasks. Together these provide advances towards understanding the cognitive side of information interaction, in working towards building better tools for users.

Interaction between Public Transportation and Urbanization in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area: an Expansive Model Reaching its Limits

In Metropolitan Area of Mexico City, most of urban displacements happen through semi formal public transportation: small and medium capacity vehicles operated by small private enterprises, through a concession scheme. This kind of public transportation has been playing a major role in the Mexican capital. On one hand, it has been one of the conditions for urbanization to be possible. On the other hand, despite its uncountable deficiencies, public transportation has allowed for a long time the whole population to be able to move within this huge metropolis. However, that important function with regards to integration has now reached its limits in the most recent suburbs of the city, where a new mode of urbanization is taking place, based on massive production of very big social housing gated settlements. Public transportation tends to constitute here a factor of exclusion and households meet with important difficulties for their daily mobility. 

Ciudad y espacio público, perspectivas complementarias y nuevos desafíos

La ciudad y los procesos que ésta desencadena en su entorno territorial han variado, de acuerdo con el momento histórico y contexto geográfico donde ocurrió, está ocurriendo o sucederá, por lo tanto, lo primero y lo segundo, son tan cambiantes, como lo son los elementos constitutivos de ese espacio ocupado, apropiado y gobernado.Son pocos los asuntos sobre los cuales coinciden las distintas comunidades académicas y disciplinas que se encargan del estudio de los procesos urbanos, como urbanistas, arquitectos, geógrafos, sociólogos, politólogos, ingenieros o planificadores; por ejemplo, con relación a la definición de lo urbano o lo qué podemos entender por ciudad; tal vez hay mayor acuerdo por lo que no es, como se constata con los espacios dedicados, exclusiva o principalmente a las actividades productivas agropecuarias. De la misma manera, sobre lo que se considera como espacio público, ya que algunos le dan un énfasis estructural y físico, como uno de los elementos rígidos que constituyen el espacio ocupado, mientras que otros, además de lo físico, rescatan de él referentes históricos, culturales y simbólicos.En la actualidad viene ganando audiencia la postura que combina lo físico y material de la ciudad y el espacio público, con lo inmaterial y simbólico de los mismos, lo que le confiere un nuevo sentido. De este tipo de convergencias, surge el escenario que contribuye a construir el ciudadano que requiere y demanda la ciudad.De acuerdo con lo anterior, el análisis que aquí se presenta se aborda a partir de tres aspectos relevantes: en primer lugar, se reiteran algunos de los caminos andados, para esbozar algunas de las nuevas perspectivas sobre la ciudad y el espacio público, tal como se sugiere en el título del artículo; en segundo lugar, relacionar aspectos históricos, conceptuales y aplicados sobre la ciudad y de esta con el espacio público, con base en el caso de Bogotá y finalmente plantear algunos de los desafíos que surgen de esta interacción, a partir de algunas reflexiones que buscan vincular esta temática con las ciencias sociales y en particular con la ciencia política.-----The city and the processes triggered by the city in its territorial environment have changed, according to the historical moment and the geographical context in which it happened, is happening, or will happen; therefore, the former and the latter are as changing as the elements of that occupied, appropriated, and governed space.There are very few subjects on which there is an agreement among the different academic communities and disciplines that study urban processes, such as town planners, architects, geographers, sociologists, political scientists, engineers, or planners. For example, regarding the definition of the urban matters or what we may understand as a city, a greater agreement may be found on what it is not, as shown with spaces exclusively or mainly dedicated to the productive agricultural/livestock activities. Likewise, regarding what is deemed as public space, because some people stress the structural and physical aspect as one of the rigid elements that comprise the occupied space, while others rescue, in addition to the physical, the historical, cultural, and symbolic references.The position that considers the physical and material city and public space combined with their immaterial and symbolic aspects has been gaining terrain lately, providing them with a whole new sense. From these convergences arises the scenario that contributes to the building of the citizenship required and demanded by the city.According to the foregoing, the analysis presented here is addressed from three relevant aspects: First, reiterating some of the already treated topics to outline some new perspectives on the city and the public space, as suggested in the title of this article; second, relating historical, conceptual, and applied aspects of the city and such aspects of the city related to the public space, based on the case of Bogotá; and finally, formulating some challenges arising form this interaction, based on certain thoughts that seek to link this topic with the Social Sciences and, in particular, with the Political Sciences.

Racial and spatial interaction for neighborhood dynamics in Chicago

We look at at the empirical validity of Schelling’s models for racial residential segregation applied to the case of Chicago. Most of the empirical literature has focused exclusively the single neighborhood model, also known as the tipping point model and neglected a multineighborhood approach or a unified approach. The multi-neighborhood approach introduced spatial interaction across the neighborhoods, in particular we look at spatial interaction across neighborhoods sharing a border. An initial exploration of the data indicates that spatial contiguity might be relevant to properly analyse the so call tipping phenomena of predominately non-Hispanic white neighborhoods to predominantly minority neighborhoods within a decade. We introduce an econometric model that combines an approach to estimate tipping point using threshold effects and a spatial autoregressive model. The estimation results from the model disputes the existence of a tipping point, that is a discontinuous change in the rate of growth of the non-Hispanic white population due to a small increase in the minority share of the neighborhood. In addition we find that racial distance between the neighborhood of interest and it surrounding neighborhoods has an important effect on the dynamics of racial segregation in Chicago.

The language used in early mother-child interaction by very-low-birth-weight children, with a focus on the emergence of grammar. 'El lenguaje utilizado por niños con muy bajo peso al nacer en la interacción temprana entre madre e hijo, con atención especial a la aparición de la gramática'.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación. Resumen en español

Dialogue activities : exploring spoken interaction in the language class.

Esta publicación anima a los estudiantes a mirar más allá de las estrategias convencionales de comunicación y practicar el lenguaje hablado en diferentes contextos. Ofrece más de cien actividades para que los estudiantes vean el idioma inglés a través de diálogos y puedan hablar de literatura, los medios de comunicación, así como extractos de una conversación auténtica. Tiene índice y bibligrafía.

Construction and psychometric characteristics of the Self-Concept Scale of Interaction in the Classroom

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Observation of early childhood educators??? interaction style and child experience ??? opportunities for training in context

Monogr??fico con el t??tulo: " Formaci??n de profesores. Perspectivas de Brasil, Colombia, Espa??a y Portugal"

Selected configuration interaction with truncation energy error and application to the Ne atom

Selected configuration interaction (SCI) for atomic and molecular electronic structure calculations is reformulated in a general framework encompassing all CI methods. The linked cluster expansion is used as an intermediate device to approximate CI coefficients BK of disconnected configurations (those that can be expressed as products of combinations of singly and doubly excited ones) in terms of CI coefficients of lower-excited configurations where each K is a linear combination of configuration-state-functions (CSFs) over all degenerate elements of K. Disconnected configurations up to sextuply excited ones are selected by Brown's energy formula, ΔEK=(E-HKK)BK2/(1-BK2), with BK determined from coefficients of singly and doubly excited configurations. The truncation energy error from disconnected configurations, Δdis, is approximated by the sum of ΔEKS of all discarded Ks. The remaining (connected) configurations are selected by thresholds based on natural orbital concepts. Given a model CI space M, a usual upper bound ES is computed by CI in a selected space S, and EM=E S+ΔEdis+δE, where δE is a residual error which can be calculated by well-defined sensitivity analyses. An SCI calculation on Ne ground state featuring 1077 orbitals is presented. Convergence to within near spectroscopic accuracy (0.5 cm-1) is achieved in a model space M of 1.4× 109 CSFs (1.1 × 1012 determinants) containing up to quadruply excited CSFs. Accurate energy contributions of quintuples and sextuples in a model space of 6.5 × 1012 CSFs are obtained. The impact of SCI on various orbital methods is discussed. Since ΔEdis can readily be calculated for very large basis sets without the need of a CI calculation, it can be used to estimate the orbital basis incompleteness error. A method for precise and efficient evaluation of ES is taken up in a companion paper

Select-divide-and-conquer method for large-scale configuration interaction

A select-divide-and-conquer variational method to approximate configuration interaction (CI) is presented. Given an orthonormal set made up of occupied orbitals (Hartree-Fock or similar) and suitable correlation orbitals (natural or localized orbitals), a large N-electron target space S is split into subspaces S0,S1,S2,...,SR. S0, of dimension d0, contains all configurations K with attributes (energy contributions, etc.) above thresholds T0={T0egy, T0etc.}; the CI coefficients in S0 remain always free to vary. S1 accommodates KS with attributes above T1≤T0. An eigenproblem of dimension d0+d1 for S0+S 1 is solved first, after which the last d1 rows and columns are contracted into a single row and column, thus freezing the last d1 CI coefficients hereinafter. The process is repeated with successive Sj(j≥2) chosen so that corresponding CI matrices fit random access memory (RAM). Davidson's eigensolver is used R times. The final energy eigenvalue (lowest or excited one) is always above the corresponding exact eigenvalue in S. Threshold values {Tj;j=0, 1, 2,...,R} regulate accuracy; for large-dimensional S, high accuracy requires S 0+S1 to be solved outside RAM. From there on, however, usually a few Davidson iterations in RAM are needed for each step, so that Hamiltonian matrix-element evaluation becomes rate determining. One μhartree accuracy is achieved for an eigenproblem of order 24 × 106, involving 1.2 × 1012 nonzero matrix elements, and 8.4×109 Slater determinants

Linear response functions for a vibrational configuration interaction state

Linear response functions are implemented for a vibrational configuration interaction state allowing accurate analytical calculations of pure vibrational contributions to dynamical polarizabilities. Sample calculations are presented for the pure vibrational contributions to the polarizabilities of water and formaldehyde. We discuss the convergence of the results with respect to various details of the vibrational wave function description as well as the potential and property surfaces. We also analyze the frequency dependence of the linear response function and the effect of accounting phenomenologically for the finite lifetime of the excited vibrational states. Finally, we compare the analytical response approach to a sum-over-states approach

The role of fungi and bacteria on the organic matter decomposition process in streams: interaction and relevance in biofilms

L'objectiu d'aquest estudi és el d'investigar sobre l'ús de matèria orgànica per part dels fongs i bacteris que colonitzen diferents substrats bentònics en rius Mediterranis i analitzar l'efecte dels factors ambientals i antròpics sobre l'estabilitat estructural i funcional de les comunitats del biofilm. La metodologia emprada en aquest estudi consisteix en: i) anàlisi de la biomassa bacteriana i fúngica, ii) anàlisi de la composició de les comunitats bentòniques (identificació d'hifomicets aquàtics i anàlisi del 16S rDNA bacterià), i iii) anàlisi de l'activitat enzimàtica extracel·lular relacionada amb el reciclatge de matèria orgànica en rius.

Caixa de sonos

Esta dissertação aborda questões relativas aos conceitos de narrativa e de narrativa processual no contexto da experiência lúdica em espaços de configuração. Para este efeito, sugere-se um sistema, a caixa de sonos, que visa a implementação prática de uma narrativa visual processual enquanto terreno de experiência lúdica em meios tecnológicos. Este sistema procura tirar partido de diferentes media para proporcionar, de forma acessível, novos palcos e rituais performativos, através de narrativas visuais processuais customizáveis e partilháveis. Em concreto, a caixa de sonos, propõe um sistema jogável que possibilita, através da monitorização do comportamento do jogador ao longo da noite, compor interactivamente um retrato simbólico da noite do mesmo. O processo de composição é partilhado a partir de uma projecção direccionada para o tecto por cima da cama do jogador, quando este se encontra acordado; sendo possível que a interacção ocorra de forma activa ou passiva, dependendo do estado de vigia do jogador. Todas as experiências simbólicas, bem como a totalidade das linguagens gráficas (base de dados das composições processuais), são personalizáveis e passíveis de serem partilhadas através de uma plataforma comunitária na rede digital.

A comparison of social interaction between groups of multiply handicapped and hearing-impaired children

This paper reviews a study to determine the differences between multiply handicapped and deaf children in social interactions.

The slow cortical evoked potential: cross modality interaction of auditory, vibro-tactile and shock stimuli

This paper discusses a study that collected cortical evoked responses when stimuli of different modalities were presented.