Lunch
'n' Learn Series
Presentations
Towards Building an Understanding of Teams
Operating in Complex Environments
C Shawn Burke, Ph.D., IST
Thursday, December 9, 2010
11:30 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.
Partnership II Building, Room 208
Come see an overview of a program of research examining the factors that facilitate team performance in complex environments. While teams are a work form that is employed by the predominant number or organizations in the 21st century, capitalizing on the potential synergy within teams takes concerted effort. Developing teams that contribute to effective performance is not as simple as placing a group of task-experts together, it requires a complex set of antecedents, processes, cognitive, and affective states. In this session, you'll see examples of research that examines how the context within which the team is embedded (e.g., distribution, virtuality, teams-of-teams, cultural diversity) may impact team process, corresponding performance; and the role that team leadership can play in mitigating these decrements such that adaptive team performance is promoted.
Dr. Shawn Burke is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Simulation and Training of the University of Central Florida. Her expertise includes teams and their leadership, team adaptability, team training, measurement, evaluation, and team effectiveness. Dr. Burke has published over 60 journal articles and book chapters related to the above topics. She is currently investigating team adaptability as well as issues related to multi-cultural team performance and multiteam systems. All of the above work is conducted with an interest in team leadership and the training of teams operating in complex environments.
Dr. Burke earned her doctorate in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from George Mason University. Dr. Burke serves as an ad-hoc reviewer for Human Factors, Military Psychology, Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Small Group Research, and Human Resource Management. She has co-edited a book on adaptability and one on advances in team effectiveness research.
An Overview of Research from the Physiological
and Human Factors Team
Thursday, November 18, 2010
11:30 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.
Lauren Reinerman-Jones, Ph.D., IST
The Physiological and Human Factors (PHF) Team of the Applied Cognition and Training in Immersive Virtual Environments (ACTIVE) Lab has been involved in some hot topic research ranging from automation to training transfer to brain-computer interface (BCI) to human-robot interaction (HRI). Each of these research lines will be described in terms of work completed, work in progress, and work planned.
A few key points pertaining to each project is provided in an effort to highlight value of each research line. The PHF team has examined influential components for considering adaptive automation. Factors investigated in experimentation include Situation Awareness (SA), workload, physiological response, and other performance metrics. The goal for this research is determine when to automated, invocation method, and type of task to automate.
Training transfer is investigated for purpose of determining the level of fidelity required for transfer to occur. Another thrust is to verify whether one-to-one mapping of the physical environment or the cognitive state as indexed by physiological response is more important.
A BCI system is in the process of being constructed. The team is only now beginning to realize the potential applications as well as the limitations of BCI. Each project is independent of one another and yet the findings are easily leveraged among them. The contributions to the military range from basic through applied science.
Dr. Lauren Reinerman-Jones started at the University of Cincinnati (U.C.) at age 14, where she earned her doctorate by directing studies for the Army, producing a useful personnel selection tool for vigilance tasks. She was Adjunct Professor at U.C. and contributed to research at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Lauren is the HFES Augmented Cognition Technical Group Program Chair. Thus, a current interest involves investigating invocation tools for automated systems with attention to eye tracking, EEG, ECG, and GSR. Other research includes the utilization of physiological measures for assessing training transfer and application to robotics and nuclear regulatory activities. Recently she earned a finalist title for the Orlando "Business Woman of the Year."
A proposal for the inclusion of aural skills training in the development of a cardiac auscultation* training tool
Thursday, October 28, 2010
11:30 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.
Elizabeth Phillips, Ph.D. Student
For medical education, simulators have answered the need to provide medical students with practical hands-on training while limiting the cost of errors. This technology is growing with the increased use of patient, surgical, and anesthesia simulators as well as virtual doctor's offices. These simulators play a vital role in providing students with extra opportunities for deliberate practice; which is essential as there is evidence of a recent decline in physical examination skills among medical residents. Although many of these medical simulators have provided students with additional training opportunities within their medical classrooms, these tools are costly and restricted in terms of accessibility. Additionally, it is important to note that examination skills like identifying heart sounds has a primary perceptual component (i.e. perception of rhythm, pitch and intensity), and thus, a medical student's ability to identify heart sounds could potentially be improved with training that specifically targets the development of aural perception skills. Support for the benefits of such training can be found in music education. Specifically, in music education the development of aural perception skills is necessary for music students to correctly identify musical errors and accurately judge when performance deviates from musical notation. In essence, the link between musical students and medical students is the need to correctly make qualitative judgments of aural stimuli against a norm. Thus, integrating tonal, rhythmic, intensity and auscultation training may help provide medical students with the additional practice needed to achieve expert skill levels.
*Listening to internal sounds of the body, usually using a stethoscope.
Elizabeth (Beth) Phillips is a second year student in the Applied Experimental and Human Factors Psychology PhD program at UCF. She has worked in the Team Performance Lab at IST for the past three years and is currently being advised by Dr. Florian Jentsch. Her research interests include Human Factors and Environmental technologies, musical training, usability and design, and performance with unmanned vehicles. She is also and an avid saxophone player and an active member of the student chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Exploring Caracol: Insights from Anthropology & Archaeology
Drs. Arlen & Diane Chase
Institute for Simulation and Training
Department of Philosophy
Partnership II – Room 209
October 7, 2010
11:30am to 12:30pm
Drs. Chase & Chase are archaeologists who explore Caracol – come learn about their expeditions and research. Caracol is the largest Maya archaeological site in Belize, Central America. In AD 650, the urban area of Caracol had a radius of approximately 10 kilometers around the site's epicenter. It covered an area much larger than present day Belize City (the largest metropolitan area in the country of Belize) and supported more than twice the modern city's population. Urban Caracol maintained a population of over 140,000 people through the creation of an immense agricultural field system and through elaborate city planning. Caracol is noted not only for its size during the Maya Classic era (A.D. 250-950), but also for its prowess in war; this includes an AD 562 defeat of Tikal (Guatemala) and a subsequent conquest of Naranjo (Guatemala) in AD 631 (see timeline at www.caracol.org).
Arlen F. Chase (Ph.D. 1983, University of Pennsylvania) is a Pegasus professor and the chair of anthropology at the University of Central Florida. His research interests focus on archaeological method and theory in the Maya area with particular emphasis on contextual, settlement, and ceramic analysis and secondary interests on urbanism, ethnicity, and epigraphic interpretation. For more than a quarter century, he has co-directed excavations at Caracol, Belize; before that he worked on a seven-year project at Santa Rita Corozal in the same country. He has authored over 100 articles and book chapters as well as The Lowland Maya Postclassic (1985; edited with P.M. Rice), Investigations at the Classic Maya City of Caracol, Belize (1987, with D.Z. Chase), A Postclassic Perspective (1988; with D.Z. Chase), Mesoamerican Elites: An Archaeological Assessment (1992; 1994; edited with D.Z. Chase), and Studies in the Archaeology of Caracol, Belize (1994; with D.Z. Chase).
Diane Z. Chase (Ph.D. 1982, University of Pennsylvania) is a Pegasus professor and the Executive Vice Provost of Academic Affairs at the University of Central Florida. Her primary focus of research is on the ancient Maya of Central America. Her research interests focus on archaeological method and theory in the Maya area with particular emphasis on complex societies and hermeneutics, ethnohistory, and osteological and mortuary analysis. For more than a quarter century, she has co-directed excavations at Caracol, Belize; before that she directed a seven-year project at Santa Rita Corozal in the same country. She has authored over 100 articles and book chapters, as well as Investigations at the Classic Maya City of Caracol, Belize (1987, with A.F. Chase), A Postclassic Perspective (1988; with A.F. Chase), Mesoamerican Elites: An Archaeological Assessment (1992; 1994; edited with A.F. Chase), and Studies in the Archaeology of Caracol, Belize (1994; with A.F. Chase). Currently, she is working on a book with A.F. Chase entitled Maya Archaeology: Reconstructing an Ancient Civilization.
Border Hunter: Training for
Cognitive Decision Making
Friday, May 14, 2010
11:30 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.
Denise Nicholson, Ph.D., Sae Schatz, Ph.D., & Eric
Ortiz, M.A.
The highly successful Combat Hunter
Program was first developed in 2007 at the bequest
of USMC General James N. Mattis. Its purpose was
to make Marines more efficient “hunters” by training
enhanced observation skills, combat profiling, and
combat tracking; a human-centric training approach
to sense for danger. Currently, this program is
only available in the Marine Corps.
However, this
April, Joint Task Force North (JTF-N) arranged for
a special 20-day “Border Hunter” course to be delivered
at Fort Bliss. Forty-three students (from the Army,
Border Patrol, and other Law Enforcement Agencies)
attended the course. Drs. Nicholson and Schatz,
along with their colleague Eric Ortiz will discuss
their experience as participant observers and discuss
some of their insights about ways to measure the
effectiveness of the course to train for cognitive
decision making (sensing for danger).
Speakers’ Bios
Dr.
Nicholson is the Director of the Applied Cognition
and Training in Immersive Virtual Environments Laboratory
at the University of Central Florida’s Institute
for Simulation and Training (IST). She holds joint
affiliations at UCF’s Modeling and Simulation Graduate
Program, Industrial Engineering and Management Department
and College of Optics and Photonics/CREOL. She has
a Ph.D. and M.S. in Optical Sciences from the University
of Arizona, a B.S. in Electrical Computer Engineering
from Clarkson University and is a Certified Modeling
and Simulation Professional (CMSP). Her research
includes Virtual Environments for Training and Education,
Computer simulation for Human – Agent Collaboration,
and Adaptive Human Systems Technologies for DOD
sponsors i.e. ONR, DARPA, Army RDECOM, and ARL.
Dr. Schatz is a Research Associate with the ACTIVE
laboratory at the University of Central Florida’s
Institute for Simulation and Training. The ACTIVE
lab, directed by Dr. Denise Nicholson, engages in
applied research and development for the analysis
and improvement of human performance. Among its
many other activities, the lab develops validated
simulation-based training systems for Defense Agencies,
including the United States Army, Navy, and Marine
Corps. Dr. Schatz’s work comprises applied research
efforts in simulation environments, including the
investigation of intelligent and adaptive training
systems and the development of training architectures
in support of the lab’s military training efforts.
Eric Ortiz became a member of the ACTIVE Lab in
2008 following eight years of service with General
Dynamics Information Technology. He has over thirteen
years experience in 3D computer animations and
simulation, creation of virtual environments,
flash web development, and multimedia design.
In addition to digital media, he has successfully
managed teams of web developers, graphic artists,
and programmers in various capacities in multiple
locations. The primary areas of focus throughout
Eric’s career have been in IT infrastructure/configuration
management, along with graphical process design,
development, and implementation.
C3Fire: A Research and Training
Simulation Environment Supporting Measurements
of Team Work in Command and Control
Rego Granlund, Santa Anna IT Research Institut - Linköping
University Sweden
Helena Granlund, Swedish Defence Research Agency
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
2:00 PM
Room 211 - Partnership II Building, 3100 Technology
Parkway
In this colloquium, we will describe
the C3Fire research and training environment and
give examples on research projects performed with
the environment (www.c3fire.org). C3Fire is a computer-based
simulation environment that is used in research
and to train coordination and collaborative work
in command and control situations.
The environment
creates a situation where a group (from 3 to 12
persons) can experience different types of common
problems in basic teamwork and command and control.
The task domain in C3Fire is forest fire fighting,
an analogue domain chosen because it creates a representative
collaborative task environment for real-world cognition.
The tasks generated in the environment are complex,
dynamic and have opaque characteristics, similar
to the cognitive tasks that people normally encounter
in real-life C2 systems.
Over the past decade C3Fire
has analyzed a variety of collaborative work processes
with recent studies including exploration of cultural
differences in team collaboration; the
impact of geographical information systems in municipality
crisis management and measuring
situation awareness through automated communication
analysis. One of the most important
features in the environment is that the system
monitors player activities and their interactions
with all simulation tools (e.g., computer-mediated
activities, communication, individual work).
C3Fire analytical tools include the ability
to asses performance, communication, coordination
and responsibility distribution at both the
person level and group level.
Speaker Bios
- Rego Granlund,
Ph.D., is a researcher at Santa Anna IT Research
Institut, Linköping University Sweden. His research
interests include monitoring team work in command
and control settings, computer-based simulation
and team work training environments. He has been
working with the C3Fire research and training
environment since 1994. He received his Ph.D.
at Linköping University in 2002.
- Helena
Granlund is a researcher at Swedish
Defence Research Agency. Her research interests
include monitoring team work in command and
control settings and pedagogical aspects of
team work training. She has been working with
the C3Fire research and training environment
since 1997.
Simulation and Robotics Efforts for Human Robot
Interaction (HRI) Research and Student Education
Daniel Barber, M.S., Institute for Simulation & Training
Friday, April 30, 2010
11:30 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.
Partnership II, Room 211, 3100 Technology Blvd.
Daniel Barber presents an overview
of recent software and tools development in the ACTIVE Lab's robotics and simulation projects. Over
the past few years our team has produced several
Open Source software libraries and applications
to support experiments in Human Robot Interaction.
In this session, you’ll see specific examples of
our simulations (e.g. Mixed Initiative Experimental
(MIX) Testbed) and robotic platforms (e.g. Segway
Robotic Mobile Platform, Remote Weapon System) and
how they’ve been incorporated across our research
efforts.
You’ll also have an opportunity to
learn how to integrate your own robotics efforts
with ours using standards for communication with
Unmanned Systems. Finally, you will also get a chance
to learn more about our educational efforts through
the Robotics Club at UCF, hearing about the different
competitions they go to. We’ll describe the challenges
these students have faced, how they’ve addressed
them, and what they’ve learned in the process.
Daniel Barber,
M.S., is a Research
Associate at IST.
He leverages his background in computer science
and modeling and simulation as a member of the Applied
Cognition and Training in Immersive Virtual Environments
(ACTIVE) Lab.
Daniel Barber also has more than five
years of experience in the field of robotics, with
research in intelligent systems, machine learning,
human-agent collaboration, control systems, path-planning,
computer vision, communication frameworks, and environment
modeling. He has designed multiple autonomous systems
and is a mentor and faculty advisor for the Robotics
Club at the University of Central Florida, which
has won the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International (AUVSI) Autonomous Surface Vehicle
Competition multiple times.
His current research
focus is Human Robot Interaction, Live Virtual and
Constructive simulations involving mixed-initiative
teams, Brain Computer Interfaces, and hybrid machine
learning models for human, social, cultural, and
behavior modeling.
A Vision for the Science of
Imagination
Jim Davies, Ph.D., Assistant Prof. Cognitive Science
Carleton University Science of Imagination Laboratory
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
2:30 p.m.
Partnership II, Room 209, 3200 Technology Pkwy
Imagination is a crucial process for
hypothetical thinking, planning, dreaming, counterfactual
thinking, and creativity. In this talk Dr. Davies
will present how imagination can be studied scientifically,
and the various endeavors he currently pursues in
the Science of Imagination Laboratory.
Dr. Jim Davies approaches cognitive
science through artificial intelligence, creating
computer models of visualization. His goal is to
create a computer program that imagines visual scenes
the same way people do, with the same content in
the same places. See www.jimdavies.org for more
information about this speaker and his imaginitive
work.
The seminar and other related activitives are co-sponsored by Simiosys
Real World Laboratory for Experiential Media and the Cognitive Sciences Student Association @ UCF.
The talk will be followed by a panel
discussion with UCF Faculty and Researchers. At
5:00 pm Dr. Davies will be on campus conducting
an informal presentation and discussion with the Cognitive
Science Student Association on pursuing imaginative
research in Cognitive Science.
For
information on the colloquium and panel discussion,
contact Christopher Stapleton (simiosys@me.com).
Contact CSSA President Heather Lum (h.lum.ucf@gmail.com)
for information on CSSA sessions.
This seminar was made possible, in
part, by a generous donation by Simiosys Real World
Laboratory for Experiential Media
Mobile, Simulation and More:
Overview of the METIL
Lab Projects
David Metcalf, Ph.D., Institute for Simulation
& Training
Jan. 29, 2010
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Partnership II, Room 209, 3100 Technology Pkwy
As the world of online technologies
evolves a host of new tools can promote play, learning
and collaboration. In this overview of mobile, game/sim
and Web 2.0 projects you will see examples of mobile,
games and simulations that build on Web 2.0 technologies
for education, healthcare business, government and
social causes. Examples from DoD, Google, Johnson
& Johnson, Microsoft and others will be shared.
Dr. David Metcalf is a senior researcher
at IST. His lab explores leading edge innovations
in learning. Specific areas of focus include learning
business strategy, performance measurement, operational
excellence, outsourcing, blended learning, games/sims
and mobile learning.
Dr. Metcalf formerly was the Chief
Learning Technologist at RWD Technologies. He joined
RWD with the sale of his NASA Kennedy Space Center
laboratory spin-off company, Merrimac. Prior to
spin-off, he was the Lead Multimedia Designer at
NASA KSC.
A Content Meta-analytic Study
of Technology Use in Computer
Support for Collaborative Learning
Dr. Heisawn Jeong, Department. of Psychology
Hallym University, Gangwon-do, South Korea
Thursday, Jan 21, 2010, 11:00 a.m.
Room 211, Partnership II Building, 3100 Technology
Pkwy
This study examined technology use
in Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL).
A content meta-analysis of empirical CSCL research
was carried out to address three research questions:
(1) What kinds of technologies are being used in
CSCL research, (2) What kinds of collaboration are
supported, and (3) What are the contexts of technology
supports (e.g., learning domains, educational levels,
and pedagogical approaches)? Empirical CSCL studies
were selected from seven leading journals of the
field. Analyses of a random sample of these studies
showed that CSCL applications typically embedded
more than one technology in their environments with
the most common technology being communication technology,
with distributed collaboration support being more
frequently face-to-face collaborative support CSCL
applications. Analyses also showed that CSCL was
carried out across a range of disciplines in a variety
of pedagogical contexts. Based on the analyses,
five different types of technological supports for
collaborative learning are proposed.
Dr. Heisawn Jeong is
an Associate Professor and former Chair in the Department
of Psychology at Hallym University in South Korea.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh
in Cognitive Psychology and has had post-doctoral
appointments at the Learning Research and Development
Center at the University of Pittsburgh and the University
of Michigan. She has also received a Visiting Scholar
appointment with the Graduate School of Education
at Rutgers University.
Dr. Jeong's research focuses on knowledge
co-construction, learning with technology, metacognition,
scientific reasoning, and cognitive aging. She has
received funding from the National Research Foundation
(NRF) of Korea, the Korean Electronics and Telecommunication
Research Institute and the Korean Ministry of Science
and Technology.
For more information or
to meet with Dr. Jeong, please contact Dr.
Stephen M. Fiore
Understanding the Facilitators
and Barriers to Knowledge Creation: A Study
of Interdisciplinary Teams in a Medical Context
Maritza R. Salazar, Ph.D., Institute for Simulation
& Training
Thursday, Dec 10, 2009
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Room 209
Partnership II Building, 3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando
National funding agencies, such as
the National Institutes of Health, suggest that
some of the greatest breakthroughs in biomedical
research will come from interdisciplinary research
which seeks to solve complex problems at the nexus
between diverse disciplines (NIH Roadmap, 2004;
National Academies Press, 2004). To gain a competitive
advantage, management of medical research and clinical
organizations seek to enhance their knowledge production
outputs by promoting interdisciplinary team structures.
In this presentation, I will share findings from
my dissertation research. The first study identifies
the factors that may influence a knowledge worker's
decision to participate in interdisciplinary, cross-departmental
research endeavors in a large, metropolitan medical
center where cross-boundary collaboration has tended
to be uncommon and counter-normative. In addition,
I will present a study that extends research that
has discussed the value of team heterogeneity for
knowledge creation in teams (Williams & O'Reilly,
1998), to empirically test this relationship in
a field study. This research investigates whether
knowledge stock heterogeneity – the conceptualization
of knowledge diversity as a complex constellation
of members' knowledge garnered from work-based experience
(e.g., disciplinary, training, and area of practice
diversity) – predicts innovativeness in interdisciplinary
science teams. Together, the findings from this
dissertation elucidate the barriers and facilitators
to participation and innovation in interdisciplinary
medical research and clinical teams.
MARITZA R. SALAZAR,
Ph.D., is post doctoral
research associate at UCF's Institute for Simulation
and Training. She earned her Ph.D. degree (2009)
in Management & Organizations from the Leonard
N. Stern School of Business at New York University.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of
learning processes, team processes, and organizational
theory with an emphasis on complex, knowledge-intensive
organizations. Her specific interests center on
collaboration processes and outcomes in knowledge-diverse
teams that facilitate and inhibit creativity and
innovation. She utilizes a multi-method approach
that combines deductive, quantitative and inductive,
grounded theory approaches to investigate under-explored
research questions related to creativity and innovation.
Use Your Illusion? Investigation of a Perceptual Training Method for Pilots in a Visual Approach Task
Michael T. Curtis, M.A.,
Institute for Simulation
& Training/UCF Department of Psychology
Thursday, Nov 12, 2009
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Room 209
Partnership II Building, 3100 Technology Pkwy,
Orlando
The approach and landing phase of flight is widely recognized as one of the most difficult phases of flight for a pilot or air crew. More specifically, training professionals in the aviation industry have repeatedly reported difficulty in training inexperienced pilots on execution of the visual approach flight maneuver. In line with these reports, a research program at IST's Team Performance Laboratory has targeted the development and testing of supplemental training protocols to improve pilot performance in a visual approach task.
The focus of this presentation will be on the development
and testing of a Discrimination Training Module
(DTM) designed to improve pilot perception of critical
cues that occur during a visual approach. With this
in mind the discussion will center on the theoretical
basis for this
novel training methodology, presentation
of findings from initial research, discussion of
ongoing research, and a look to future research
on this topic.
Michael Curtis received his B.A. in psychology
in 2001 and a post-baccalaureate certificate in
human technology interaction in 2004 from the University
of Kentucky. Mike also received a M.A. in human
factors psychology from the University of Central
Florida (UCF) in 2008, where he is currently a doctoral
candidate in the Applied Experimental Human Factors
Ph.D. program. Mike has worked on a range of human
factors topics spanning from product design to robotics.
His main focus lies, however, in the aviation domain.
Working as a senior research associate at the Team
Performance Laboratory (TPL) with Dr. Florian Jentsch,
his research mainly entails topics involving cockpit
and crew team behavior, pilot training, and pilot
performance measurement.
Mixed Reality: Basic Research
and Applications at the Media Convergence Laboratory
Charlie
Hughes and Eileen
Smith,
Institute for Simulation
& Training
Thursday, Oct 29, 2009
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Room 209
Partnership II Building, 3100 Technology Pkwy,
Orlando

Mixed Reality (MR), the blending of real and virtual
worlds, is central to most of the projects and basic
research taking place at MCL. Charlie will give
an introduction to the topic, discussing the continuum
from the virtual to the real that is the domain
of MR.
He will give examples of projects taking
place across this continuum, emphasizing the technologies
and basic research that support these applications.
Specifically, he will describe projects that address
performance assessment/improvement including situational
awareness and physical/cognitive rehabilitation.
Eileen will then discuss the lab's activities
in experiential learning. Specifically, she will
describe a project in which we developing kiosks
for the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort
Lauderdale, and our work in teacher assessment and
preparation..
Applying the Science of Teams
to Inform Policy and Research on Team Science
Stephen
Fiore, PhD, Institute for Simulation
& Training
Thursday, Oct 3, 2009
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Room 209
Partnership II Building, 3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando
Science has long recognized the difficulty associated
with interdisciplinary research – yet we continually
struggle with overcoming the challenges arising
from interdisciplinary interaction. In this presentation
I discuss interdisciplinary research in the context
of team science and how to develop a complementary
basic and applied research agenda supporting a broad
swath of group and team researchers. Comparisons
between interdisciplinary research and other forms
of cross-disciplinary research are made along with
a brief discussion of the development of this concept.
The primary argument is that interdisciplinary research
is essentially team research, that is, research
conducted by a team. I show how it may be possible
to consider the implementation of principles from
teamwork and team training to improve interdisciplinary
research and the practice of team science.
Does Size Matter? Investigating
the Utility of 1:35 Scale Models for Training
Military Vehicle Recognition
Joseph Keebler, Ph.D., Institute for Simulation
& Training
Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Room 208
Partnership II Building, 3100 Technology Pkwy,
Orlando
This presentation will discuss a series of studies
conducted as part of a collaboration between IST's
Team Performance Laboratory and ACTIVE Lab. The
research involved investigation of the perceptual
processes involved in target recognition to improve
training and minimize fratricide. The overall goal
was to examine the viability of 1:35 scale models
as training aids to facilitate detection of friend/foe
targets. Via a multi-disciplinary approach, the
research examined training outcomes when scaled
models are compared to other methods of military
training, including military issued graphic training
aids and vehicles taken from a Deployable Virtual
Environment. An overview will be presented of findings
from a series of five studies, across both laboratory
and virtual environment contexts, along with Functional
Near-Infrared Imaging data which examined neural
correlates of military vehicle identification in
the parietal lobe.
Joseph Keebler is pursuing his Ph.D. in Human Factors
Psychology at UCF, working under the direction of
Dr. Florian Jentsch. His main areas of research
include cognition, perception and expertise, specifically
as they apply to object recognition, and human robot
teaming. He has published on the topic of cognition
in combat and presented on fratricide and combat
misidentification. Recently he has been investigating
the utility of Functional Near Infrared Technology
as a means to better understand learning and training.
Unmanned Air Vehicles in US Airspace
Randall Shumaker, Ph.D., Institute for Simulation
& Training
Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Partnership II Building, 3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando
In recent years there have been major advances
in many aspects of technology to build a variety
of unmanned vehicles. While most are remotely
operated, there has also been significant success
in creating vehicles capable of fully autonomous
operation in complex environments.
But these technical developments have created a
huge demand by government, industry, and academic
sectors to operate unmanned air vehicles within
the US airspace for applications ranging from long-range
transportation of cargo, pipeline and power line
inspection, research of many kinds, to hobbyists.
As such, there is a high probability that unmanned
aircraft will be operating over our heads within
the next few years.
In this talk Dr. Shumaker discusses these developments
as they relate to taking this major step in unmanned
vehicle deployment. He outlines some of UCF's current
research and development in unmanned vehicles and
provide background information on how air operations
work in the US. He also includes discussion of
the regulatory and operational implications of research
in this area – which has, heretofore, focused on
operations in highly controlled situations and for
special purposes.
If you are interested in research opportunities
in this domain, or even curious about the implications
of an unmanned FEDEX cargo aircraft landing on the
runway after your USAIR flight touches down, or
the potential issues associated with small unmanned
(up to 45 KG) aircraft operating over your house,
you should attend this talk.
Randall Shumaker, Ph.D. directs the operations
of the Institute for Simulation & Training.
Previously Superintendent, Information Technology
Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington,
DC, he brings considerable expertise in human-machine
interface and artificial intelligence to the institute
and UCF.
His personal research interests include
artificial intelligence, biomorphic computing methods,
and advanced techniques for software development.
As a former Presidential rank Senior Executive,
US Voting Member in the NATO IST Panel, and frequent
reviewer and advisor for military research programs,
he has significant insight into military and high
consequence civilian applications of technology.
He has had significant success in transitioning
research from academia into government and industry.
Shumaker is the author of more than fifty scientific
publications and is a frequent speaker on a variety
of technical topics. He has served as a reviewer
for several professional publications and for federal
agencies including DARPA, DDR&E, ONR, NASA,
and ARL. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science
from the University of Pennsylvania, is a Professional
Engineer, and a Commercial Pilot, SEL, MEL, IA.
Vision of
the Centers
Dr. Glenn Boreman
Trustee Chair Professor in the UCF College of Optics and Photonics
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
11:00 a.m.
Nanoscience Center, 12424 Research Parkway, Suite
435
45-minute presentation followed by 15 minute of discussion
Glenn Boreman received the B.S.
degree in optics from the University of Rochester
and the Ph.D. in optical sciences from the University
of Arizona. He joined the UCF faculty in 1984 as
an assistant professor of Electrical Engineering.
He is currently Trustee Chair Professor in the College
of Optics & Photonics, with doctoral-student supervision
privileges also in Electrical Engineering, Physics,
and Materials Science. He has supervised 17 doctoral
students to completion at UCF. His research concentrates
on the development of high-frequency electromagnetic
sensing devices using direct-write electron beam
lithography. He is coauthor of Infrared Detectors
and Systems (Wiley), author of Basic Electro-Optics
for Electrical Engineers (SPIE Press) and Modulation
Transfer Function in Optical and Electro-Optical
Systems (SPIE Press). Prof. Boreman served 6 years
as Editor-in-Chief of Applied Optics; and is a senior
member of IEEE, a fellow of the Optical Society of
America (OSA) and a fellow of the Society of Photo-Optical
Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).
Cognitive Simulation: The Maryland Virtual Patient (MVP)
Sergei Nirenburg, Marjorie McShane, Stephen Beale
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Bruce Jarrell, George Fantry
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Monday, March 16, 2009
11:30 a.m.
A 45-minute presentation will be followed by 15 minutes of discussion
The Maryland Virtual Patient (MVP) is an electronic environment designed for trainees to rehearse and perfect the mental aspects of medical decision-making. This simulated environment aims to recreate the real life medical situation that is among our most effective learning situations; direct patient care in a teaching hospital or clinic. In this
situation, a trainee communicates with a patient, interprets test results and images, establishes a diagnosis, develops a plan with the patient, performs interventions and observes responses to treatments, all while under the supervision of a clinician-teacher. Throughout the process, sophisticated language-based exchanges occur between the patient,
teacher and trainee. Both the patient-trainee interaction, as well as the teacher-trainee interaction, stimulate the trainee to define problems, synthesize solutions and recognize personal knowledge shortcomings. These cognitive and metacognitive processes result in highly educational experiences.
Overview of MVP:
In order to create a simulation environment that enables these processes, two essential design requirements are needed: the creation of electronic patients; and an electronic forum for communicative exchanges in English to occur between patient and trainee. Both requirements are functional in the MVP.
To create electronic patients, the MVP environment processes encoded deep medical knowledge using artificial intelligence software in a multi-agent network to generate Virtual Patients (VPs) as instances. These VP instances demonstrate realistic physiological and medical findings that evolve over time in an automatic way. The VPs also react appropriately
to trainee chosen medical interventions, whether correct or incorrect. The combination of the depth and complexity of the VP along with the trainee's actions results in a dynamic, open-ended process where many VP outcomes are possible.
To create an electronic forum for a two-way conversation between VP and trainee, the MVP environment uses natural language processing technology to assign meaning to trainee input. Once the input is interpreted, the VP formulates a response, also in natural language, to return to the trainee. This response is electronically generated through intelligent
reasoning that considers the trainee input request, MVP deep medical knowledge, VP physiological traits, and VP intellectual traits and social values.
A third design component of the MVP is to enable a two-way conversation between a trainee and an electronic teacher. Although not as well developed as the VP discussed above, the intelligent virtual teacher in the MVP is capable of evaluating the trainee's performance real-time and providing selected feedback and suggestions, also in natural language.
This capability will become more developed as additional knowledge is added to the system.
Technical Accomplishments in the MVP:
MVP technical elements are in various stages of refinement and include:
- A knowledge repository containing medical and pedagogical information which is amenable to machine reasoning
- Software capable of reasoning with the knowledge, interpreting trainee language input to the VP and generating VP language output to the trainee
- A knowledge-based model of the human body in health and disease, and the software to use the model to create a VP and have it function autonomously, over time and in response to trainee interventions
- A similar model of human intellectual traits and social values that are important in health maintenance, disease development and disease management, and that are chosen because they are educationally important for a trainee to learn and manage
- Medical knowledge-based and pedagogically-based models of an intelligent virtual teacher
- Software capable of enabling a conversation-based interaction between the trainee, the virtual patient and the virtual teacher using human language
Currently, we have VPs suffering from nine complex esophageal diseases that progress over time. They behave in a clinically appropriate fashion and possess a complexity that challenges clinical skills at the level of a senior GI fellow. Other possible conditions including TBI and PTSD are being considered for additional development.
Research at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Randall Hill, Jr., PhD, Executive Director
Friday, January 30, 2009
11:00 a.m.
A 45-minute presentation will be followed by 15 minutes of discussion
The University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies is revolutionizing learning through the development of interactive digital media.
Collaborating with entertainment industry neighbors, ICT produces virtual humans, computer training simulations and immersive experiences for decision-making, cultural awareness, leadership and health.
Randall (Randy) Hill,
Jr., Executive Director, graduated with a
Bachelor of Science degree from the United States
Military Academy at West Point in 1978 and subsequently
served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army
for six years with assignments in field artillery
and military intelligence.
Dr. Hill joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1984. There he became a technical group supervisor and the work area manager for network automation in NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) Advanced Technology Program. While at JPL, he earned his
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 1987 and 1993, respectively. His doctoral thesis showed how intelligent tutoring systems can be used in interactive simulations to assist students in learning how to operate complex equipment.
Dr. Hill joined the USC Information Sciences Institute in 1995, where he worked with Paul Rosenbloom, Milind Tambe and Jonathan Gratch on the development of models of human behavior and decision-making for real-time simulation environments. He joined
the USC Institute for Creative Technologies in June 2000 as a Senior Scientist and was involved with research on virtual humans and immersive learning environments. In December 2004, Dr. Hill became Director of Applied Research and Transition. In this position, one of his greatest accomplishments was forging stronger ties between entertainment industry
and technology developers to create engaging immersive learning environments. Most notably, he led the Army Excellence in Leadership (AXL) and Enhanced Learning Environments with Creative Technologies (ELECT) projects at the Institute. In October of 2006, Dr. Hill was named the Executive Director of the ICT.
Dr. Hill is a research assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at USC. He is a member of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and he has served on the Program Committees for the Eighteenth Conference on
Innovative Applications for Artificial Intelligence (June 2006, Boston, MA), the Fifteenth Conference on Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (May 2006, Baltimore, MD), and the Sixth International Working Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents hosted by the ICT (August 2006, Marina Del Rey, CA). Dr. Hill has over fifty technical
publications, including a co-authored article, "Toward Virtual Humans" featured in AI Magazine in Summer 2006.
Past
Medin Series Presentations(2008)
Lunch 'n' Learn Series, 2007
lectures 2006
lectures 2005 lectures 2004
lectures
Functional Imaging with NIRS: Its Technology and
Applications
Dr. Randall Barbour
NIRx Medical Technologies
Monday, Sept. 15, 2008
12:00 p.m.
Room 112, Partnership II Building
3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando, FL 32826
Since its original adaptation as a tomographic imaging modality by Barbour in 1988, NIRS imaging is increasingly recognized as a powerful tool to explore the wealth of information that can be harnessed from measures of the dynamics of the hemoglobin signal. Recent advances in instrumentation design and related capabilities
have rendered the technology operational under a wide range of conditions that are generally unsuitable to alternative technologies. These capabilities have enabled access to critical elements of tissue function in ways that significantly enhance the information value of the NIRS signal. Discussed will be an overview of latest developments in system
capabilities and examples of applications in the field of neuroscience and other investigative areas.
While formally trained as a biochemist, over the past twenty years, Dr. Barbour has focused on technology and application development in field of biomedical optics. Dr. Barbour was the first to describe the methods of Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT) (1988) and the related area of Fluorescence Diffusion Tomography (1995), both of which are now widely
practiced world-wide. In 1999, Dr. Barbour extended DOT capabilities to provide for the capture of a continuous time series of imaging data. The latter methodology is currently the leading approach to biomedical optical studies of large tissue structures. Dr. Barbour holds a professional license in laboratory medicine, has published more than 175 peer
review and conference papers, has seventeen patents issued or under review, and has been continuously funded from NIH since 1993. Dr. Barbour also serves as CEO of Photon Migration Technologies, a federally funded R&D company and CEO, of NIRx Medical Technologies, a world leader in the development of DOT imaging systems. Dr. Barbour serves as a reviewer
for NIH and other federal granting agencies and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Biomedical Optics.
Naval S&T Strategic Plan on Naval Warrior Performance and Protection
RADM William E. Landay
Chief of Naval Research
Friday, May 2, 2008
1:00 p.m.
Room 208, Partnership II Building
3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando, FL 32826
In this talk CNR RADM Landay will discuss the Naval Warrior Performance and Protection focus area from the Naval S&T Strategic Plan.
Rear Admiral Bill Landay was commissioned as a Surface Warfare Officer in May 1978. His numerous sea tours include Gunnery Assistant and Combat Information Center Officer in USS Hepburn (FF 1055); Ship Control Officer in USS Nicholas (FFG 47); Commanding Officer of USS Aquila (PHM 4); and Commanding Officer of USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60).
Ashore, he has served as C4I Program Officer at the United States Transportation Command; Executive Assistant to the Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command; Deputy for Fleet and Lifetime Support in the Program Executive Office, Theater Surface Combatants; and Executive Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development, and
Acquisition); His Flag assignments have included Program Executive Officer for Littoral and Mine Warfare; and, currently, the 21st Chief of Naval Research, where he also serves as the Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Science and Technology and Director, Test and Evaluation and Technology Requirements.
Rear Admiral Landay holds a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from the United States Naval Academy and a Master of Science in Systems Technology (C4I) from the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a graduate of the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School and a certified Acquisition Professional.
Quality Assurance of Simulation Models and Applications
Prof. Axel Lehmann, Universität der Bundeswehr
Institut für Technische Informatik
Monday, April 7, 2008
11:00 a.m.
Room 209, Partnership II Building
3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando, FL 32826
This presentation will summarize some major results of research studies Dr. Lehmann has been involved with over the past couple of years for the German Armed Forces. The talk will focus on the importance of considering model design, development, and application as a multi-phase engineering process where each phase results
in an intermediate product, its documentation and a report on tests, and verification & validation results. By means of concrete examples, the presentation will demonstrate the usefulness and applicability of such a generic model engineering approach.
Axel Lehmann, PhD Full Professor with a Chair in Modeling and Simulation at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany (Federal Armed Forces University) for nearly 20 years. In addition, he is currently Executive Director of another non-for-profit Institute (ITIS) at the university, which focuses its research and projects on M&S, as well. The
major areas of current projects and of research concerns are:
- parallel and distributed M&S
- verification & validation of M&S
- component-based model design
- model management systems
- intelligent, ontology-based decision support
Operational Adaptation: Impact of Cognitive Sciences for the Naval Warfighter
Ivy Estabrooke, PhD
Office of Naval Research Global
Monday, Jan. 14, 2008
2:00 p.m.
Partnership II Building
The Office of Naval Research is responsible for
fostering, planning, facilitate and transitioning
scientific research to enable future naval power and
the preservation of national security. The Naval S&T Strategic plan recognizes the potential impact of the cognitive sciences in the Warfighter Performance and Protection and Distributed Operations focus
areas.
Leveraging the past “Decade of the Mind,” the cognitive sciences are poised to enhance future naval capabilities, protecting and treating sailors and marines and optimizing training and selection of the future force. The strategy highlights the need for improving training, enhancing assimilation of new cultures and
environments and improving small group performance.
The new concept of Operational Adaptation, being able to adapt to the operational environment faster than the enemy, will require new avenues of research in the cognitive, social and cultural sciences. In this presentation we will discuss new program areas including advancing methods for training and selection for rapid
cultural assimilation and adversarial psychology.
Ivy V. Estabrooke, PhD is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the Office of Naval Research Global where she fosters collaboration with international scientists in Naval-relevant fields with a focus on Naval Warfighter Performance. She is currently
collaborating with the Expeditionary and Manuever Warfare division of the Office of Naval Research to integrate the cognitive, social and cultural sciences to support Marine Corps and Navy Warfighter performance. Ivy earned her PhD in neuroscience from Georgetown University in 2005 for work examining sex differences and hormone influences on language
production and memory systems. She also has extensive experience with neuroimaging and pharmacological intervention studies. Ivy’s scientific interests span the fields of neuroscience, cognition, psychology and linguistics.
Past Medin Series Presentations (2007)
Lunch 'n' Learn Series, 2008 lectures 2006
lectures 2005
lectures 2004 lectures
Designing Scalable and Adaptive Heterogeneous Multiagent Teams
Dr. R. Paul Wiegand, ITT Industries Advanced Engineering and Sciences
Friday, Feb. 16, 2007
11:00 a.m.
Room 208, Partnership II bldg, 3100 Technology Pky
Orlando, FL (Central Florida Research Park)
Dr. Wiegand will present an extension to an existing artificial physics based representation for control behaviors of multiple interacting agents. The extension allows for natural incorporation of heterogeneous member behaviors in the team, and it is particularly well-suited for situations where team behaviors are based on
geometric formations (e.g., rings and lattices). This representation allows for a great deal of flexibility and adaptability in terms of the makeup of the team. In addition, he will discuss a principled method for constructing modular and scalable heterogeneous team behaviors that allows an engineer to incorporate domain knowledge during design.
Solutions to variants of a resource protection problem will be demonstrated. Finally, he will discuss how these ideas were applied to this problem in the context of physical robotic platforms, paying particular attention to the robotic team's ability to gracefully adapt to changes in team capabilities.
Dr. R. Paul Wiegand works for ITT Industries Advanced Engineering & Sciences and conducts research at the Naval Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence, part of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. His work at NRL began with a postdoctoral fellowship provided by the American Society for Engineering Education after receiving his
Ph.D. from George Mason University in 2004. Dr. Wiegand's general research interests are in the areas of theory of coevolutionary computation, multiagent systems, and application of coevolution for multiagent learning. He helped organize the coevolution workshop at the 2002 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference and served as an invited
researcher at Dortmund University as part of the Collaborative Research Center‚ Computational Intelligence‚ (SFB 531) in 2003. He has also served as co-moderator of EC-Digest, a research-oriented email list that serves the evolutionary computation community; and as a member of the IEEE Task Force on Coevolution.
Social-Network and Simulation Views of Effective Teamwork
Alex Yahja, Ph.D.
Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2007
1:30 p.m.
3280 Progress Dr, Orlando, FL (Central Florida Research Park)
Real world events are often unpredictable and chaotic, and thus challenging. In particular, combat environments are especially challenging for teamwork. It is crucial to be able to adapt to real world events, and the most adaptive component in the human-robot teamwork systems is the human one. Dr. Yahja will talk about how
humans establish and dissolve communication and social networks from the social-network’s point of view.
He will explore a case of robot teamwork architectures built from a computer science point of view. Then he will describe a potential avenue to make teamwork more effective based on the lessons gathered from both social-network and robotic/computer science teamwork research. The social-network’s view includes the
consideration of organizations, a formal form of social-networks. Additionally, he will explore another view for teamwork: the simulation’s point of view. While simulation is not often thought of as an essential part of teamwork, he will show that it should be. He will also touch briefly on cyberinfrastructure.
Alex Yahja received the Ph.D. degree in computation, organizations and society from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA in September 2006. He received two M.Sc. degrees, one in robotics and one in engineering and public policy, from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 and 2004 respectively.
He is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. In his current work, he is doing research into social peer-to-peer disaster response systems and collaborative recommender systems for the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) group at NCSA.
In his graduate years, did research in mobile robotic systems, policy analysis, computational social and organizational science, and modeling and simulation. His dissertation deals with how to automate the validation and model-improvement of simulations. A new conceptualization is developed and the resulting tool is applied to agent-based simulations of
disease spread and in social-network workers-management simulations of impeding strikes.
His research interests span modeling and simulation, model validation and improvement, machine learning, hypothesis formation and testing, social networks, collaboration/teamwork and recommender systems, robotics, computational management and organization science, knowledge-based systems, policy analysis, cyberinfrastructure, and artificial intelligence.
Military Troops and Disabled Veterans:
Using Intelligent Agents to Cope with Complex, Time Sensitive Information
Wayne Shebilske Ph.D.
Friday, Jan. 26, 2007
2:00 p.m.
3280 Progress Dr, Orlando, FL (Central Florida Research Park)
Dr. Shebilske is applying his research into training and intelligent displays to learning with disabilities. His key insight is that disabilities slow and distort perceptions and/or responses to increase time sensitivity and information processing complexity. His motivation for this extension comes from a needs analysis he
did of disabled students at Wright State University and related needs of thousands of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who are surviving severe blasts because of (a) body armor that protects vital organs and (b) prompt, effective care in the field. The Veterans Administration is responding by treating and rehabilitating this new generation of disabled
veterans, whose injuries include multiple amputations, low vision, hearing loss, spinal cord injuries, and other neurological losses. He thinks Human Factors and IO psychologists can play an important role in responding to these needs.
Dr. Shebilske's current research also includes Benchmarked Experiential Systems for Training (BEST) and Intelligent Icons for Meta-information Adaptive Presentation (I2MAP). He is applying this research to Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) teams and Dynamic Targeting Cell (DTC) teams of the Air and Space Operations Center and is observing
simulated missions of these Air Force command and control tasks in which information is overwhelmingly time sensitive and complex. He combines training and intelligent displays to help troops cope with the time sensitivity and complexity. Both interventions employ mathematical benchmarking of near-optimal performance.
Dr. Shebilske received his Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1974. After nine years on the faculty of the University of Virginia Psychology Department (Assistant Professor, 1974-1979: Associate Professor 1979-1983), Dr. Shebilske served as Study Director for the Committee on Vision at the National Academy of Sciences
(1983-1985). Dr. Shebilske was a professor at Texas A&M University (1985-1998) where he was the Graduate Program Advisor (1993-1998). He conducted research at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Brooks Air Force Base and Lackland Air Force Base. He spent the summer of 1985 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld, Germany. In 1992, he was awarded
a National Research Council Senior Research Associateship at the Armstrong Laboratory Intelligent Training Branch. He conducted research at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Brooks Air Force Base and Lackland Air Force Base. He spent the fall of 1998 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. He has worked closely with government,
military, and private agencies identifying critical issues for study in many areas including design and development of aerospace systems, visual display equipment, medical devices, standards for pilots and drivers, automated instruction for complex skills, and virtual reality systems.
Emerging Semantic Web Trends:
Transparent and Trustworthy Applications and Semantically-Enabled
Scientific Data Integration
Deborah McGuinness, Ph.D.
Friday, Jan. 12, 2007
11:00 a.m.
Partnership II bldg., 3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando, FL (Central Florida Research Park)
As web applications proliferate, more users (both people and agents) find themselves faced with decisions about when and why to trust application advice. In order to trust information obtained from arbitrary applications, users need to understand how the information was obtained and what it depended upon.
Particularly in web applications that may use question answering systems that may be heuristic or incomplete or data that is either of unknown origin or may be out of date, it becomes more important to have information about how answers were obtained. Emerging web systems will return answers augmented with Meta information
about how answers were obtained. In this talk, Deborah McGuinness will describe an approach that can improve trust in answers generated from web applications by making the answer process more transparent.
The added information is aimed to provide users (humans or agents) with answers to questions of trust, reliability, recency, and applicability. The talk will include descriptions of a few representative applications using this approach explaining cognitive assistants that learn and intelligence analyst tools.
The talk will also briefly highlight work on semantically-enabling access to and integration of scientific data. Examples will be taken from Deborah’s work on the NSF-funded Virtual Solar Terrestrial Observatory and the NASA-funded Semantically-Enabled Scientific Data Integration projects.
Dr. McGuinness is the acting director and senior research scientist at the Knowledge Systems, (KSL) Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University. She is a leading expert in knowledge representation and reasoning languages and systems and has worked in ontology creation and evolution environments for over 20
years. Most recently, Deborah is best known for her leadership role in semantic web research, and for her work on explanation, trust, and applications of semantic web technology, particularly for scientific applications.
Past Medin Series Presentations (2006)
Lunch 'n' Learn Series, 2008 lectures 2007
lectures 2005 lectures 2004
lectures
Smaller, Faster & Immersive: New
Directions for Virtual Environment Design
Larry Davis, Ph.D.
Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006
Room 112, Partnership II building
3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando, FL (Central Florida Research Park)
The increased computational power of
microprocessors has enabled fantastic miniaturization of devices and
unprecedented functionality. From cellular phones, to the iPod, to the
Blackberry and to personal DVD players, devices are smaller, faster and deliver
an ever-increasing amount of features. Moreover, these features are often
complementary, e.g., a cellular phone that plays music files.
With the integration of these devices into everyday life, the commercial
success or failure of a device is often linked to the transparency of its user
interface. By transparency, we mean the level at which using a device is
comfortable, natural, socially appropriate, and/or intuitive.
Unfortunately, virtual environments are typically not very transparent.
However, by taking advantage of the trend toward smaller devices with
complementary features and advanced sensing, we can begin to increase the
transparency of virtual environments. These increasingly transparent systems
will have direct aid in visualization, training, and augmented cognition.
Dr. Davis will summarize his research accomplishments and how they have shaped
his thinking regarding interfaces. He will share his insights into
miniaturization and its pertinence to virtual environments, and discuss
research directions that may be pursued to increase virtual environment
transparency.
Larry Davis is currently a Senior Instructional Assistant at Valencia Community
College and a Co-Founder of Tirrion Technologies, a start-up company in the
University of Central Florida Technology Incubator. His research interests are
in the area of virtual environments and his work spans a range of topics,
including the optimization of tracking scenarios, the creation of novel virtual
environments, and the implementation of user assessment tools. He has authored
or co-authored more than thirty research papers and presentations on these
topics.
Dr. Davis received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of
Central Florida in 2004. He is a McKnight Doctoral Fellow and has participated
in research programs with Sandia National Laboratories. He serves on the
editorial board of the FEF Journal of Interdisciplinary Research.
Redirected Walking in Virtual
Environments
Sharif Razzaque
Wednesday, Feb 15, 2006
10:00 a.m.
IST Conference Room, Partnership II building
3100 Technology Pkwy, Orlando, FL (Central Florida Research Park)
There are many different techniques for allowing users to specify locomotion in
human-scale immersive virtual environments (VEs). These include flying with a
hand-controller, using a treadmill, walking-in-place, and others. Real walking,
where the user actually and physically walks in the lab, and virtually moves
the same distance and in the same direction in the virtual scene, is better
than flying. It is more input-natural, does not require learning a new
interface, results in a greater sense of presence, and theoretically results in
less simulator sickness.
One serious problem with real walking, however, is that the size of the virtual
scene is limited by the size of tracked area. For example, for an architect to
really walk in a virtual prototype of a house, the tracked area must be as
large as the house. This requirement makes real walking infeasible for many
facilities and virtual scenes.
To address this limitation, Dr. Razzaque has developed Redirected Walking,
which by interactively and imperceptibly rotating the virtual scene around the
user makes the user turn her/himself. Under the right conditions, Redirected
Walking would cause the user to unknowingly walk in circles in the lab, while
thinking he/she is walking in a straight and infinitely long path in the
virtual scene.
Dr. Razzaque will discuss Redirected Walking’s theoretical and physiological
underpinnings, and show that it can be used:
1) To make the user turn themselves
2) Without causing the user to be aware of Redirection
3) Without unacceptably increasing the user’s level of simulator sickness and,
most importantly,
4) To useful effect:
· In head-mounted display (HMD) systems, the user can experience a virtual
scene larger than the lab while also having the benefits of real walking.
· In an open-backed, three-walled CAVE, users can have the increased presence
and input-naturalness normally associated with a fully enclosed CAVE.
Ideas for VE training scenarios that address several limitations of current HMD
VE systems, such as field-of-view and latency will also be discussed.
Sharif Razzaque has just earned a PhD in Computer
Science from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, under Fred
Brooks. His interests are human computer interaction, virtual environments, and
building real, deployable, systems. He has previously worked on physiological
assessment of presence, collaborative satellite-engineering tools at Lockheed
Martin, and cochlear implants at the University of Michigan.
Past Medin Series Presentations (2005)
Lunch 'n' Learn Series, 2008 lectures 2007
lectures 2006
lectures 2004
lectures
The Team Performance Lab: R&D for training and evaluating
real-life skills in high-consequence applications
Dr. Florian Jentsch
May 3, 2005
11:30 a.m.
IST Classrooms, 3280 Progress Drive
Dr. Jentsch will discuss the Team Performance
Laboratory at UCF which he directs. Performance is critical in complex and
dynamic environments where teams are required to adapt to uncertain information
and where the cost of team error is high. The Team Performance Lab studies ways
to use modeling and simulation not only to provide safe and cost-effective
training solutions, but also to ensure the possibility of tracking, measuring
and critiquing the effect of training on individuals and teams.
Florian Jentsch, Ph.D., is an associate scientist/scholar in the Department of
Psychology at the University of Central Florida. He is also the current
director of the Team Performance Laboratory, a position he took over in the
Fall of 2003 after he had been Assistant and Associate Director of the Lab
since 1997 and 2001, respectively.
Dr. Jentsch received his Ph.D. in human factors psychology from the University
of Central Florida in 1997. He also holds master’s degrees in aeronautical
engineering from the Technical University of Berlin (summa cum laude) and in
aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. His doctoral
dissertation on training for junior commercial flight crew members won the
American Psychological Association’s 1998 George E. Briggs Award for the best
dissertation in applied/experimental psychology, and he was also awarded the
American Psychological Association’s 2002 Earl Alluisi award for Early Career
Achievement in applied/experimental psychology.
Dr. Jentsch’s interests center on research and development that supports the
training and evaluation of complex knowledges and skills, especially in
high-consequence environments. Application areas for his research have been in
team training, human-robot-interaction, aviation human factors, cross-cultural
research, research methodology, and simulation where he has co-authored over
150 publications, presentations, and technical reports. He has received grants
and contracts from the U.S. Army (ARL-HRED, ARO, PEO-STRI, and RDECOM-STTC),
the U.S. Navy (NAWC-TSD, NAVAIR Orlando), several units within the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA), and from the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA). He also has consulted on system and software development
projects for various federal and state government sponsors, including the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the
U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, DoT-FAA, DoT-TSI. NASA, and Workforce Central Florida (WCF).
What's Wrong with Virtual?
The Whereabouts of Marketing Virtual Reality Value
Dr. Patrick Corsi
Feb. 24, 2005
11:00 a.m.
IST Classroom C
Are we yet “on the threshold of
the Age of Magic” (Fruchterman, 1992)?
From the past hype of the early nineties, Virtual
Reality fell well under the past years promises.
While the potential remains intact, a deep transition
is going on mostly underpinned by such notions as
presence and engagement. This necessarily calls
for revisiting the demerits of VR.
Do we yet know how can VR make our economy more
competitive?
VR equipment is still expensive if not encumbering,
hardly real-time and not so immersive; user training
and side-effects restraint the use to e.g. entertainment.
A shared perception of a relatively immature technology
hasn’t
much disappeared. Can VR functional added-value
be deployed then in e.g. health care, industrial
maintenance and distance operations? How? That is
the marketer’s address here…
But wait! There is more: VR is a key enabler that
impacts design methods and models, products life-cycles,
distance operations…
Specific benefits include the virtual as a training
paradigm substituting to the real; in a nutshell,
VR is to be positively found at the core of the
accelerated timings of tomorrow’s innovations. The
virtual paradigm re-positions users within new
business models that may capture the value of tomorrow
markets…
This talk explains how to relinquish the intractable
of VR and the difficulties inherent to VR weaknesses.
Can we then hopefully delineate the modalities for
mass field adoption so virtual comes of age for… real?
Patrick Corsi first worked for IBM
(San Jose Research Lab; La Gaude telecommunications
plant); then THOMSON-CSF (directing AI group),
grew a start-up in artificial intelligence over
the 80’s
in Paris; worked at the European Commission in Brussels
in charge of monitoring the European AI portfolio
of projects over the nineties. He is now an international
consultant in innovation engineering - KINNSYS,
Brussels; an Associate Professor at ISTIA Innovation,
University of Angers and Laval on VR entrepreneurship
and an Executive Advisor to the European Multimedia
Forum. He can be reached at patrick.corsi@skynet.be.
Teamwork in the
Control of Unmanned Vehicles: Challenges, Progress, and Lessons Learned
Thursday,
February 3, 2005
11:00 AM
IST's Classrooms
3280 Progess Drive
45 minute presentation followed by 15 minutes of discussion.
During 2001-2003,
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded a program on
“mixed initiative control” of teams of unmanned robotic vehicles. This
presentation will discuss the goals of the program, the cognitive engineering
challenges associated with mixed initiative control of teams of unmanned
vehicles, the progress that was made in developing human control concepts and
some of the lessons learned from the effort that can inform future research.
Jean MacMillan
is the Chief Scientist at Aptima. Jean holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology
from Harvard University, an M.C.P. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from
Antioch College. Her 20-year research career has spanned a broad range of
topics in human-machine interaction and user-centered system design, including
adaptive instructional design, team decision-making, command center design, and
human performance measurement in simulation environments.
At Aptima, Jean
has served as the Principal Investigator for projects focusing on the
development of reliable and valid performance measures for teams of F-16 pilots
training in a distributed simulation facility, the design of synthetic entities
that function as team members for simulation-based training of teamwork skills,
the assessment of team performance and development of team performance measures
for AWACS Weapons Director teams, and the development of optimized model-based
manning reduction strategies that will allow the operation of Navy ships with a
reduced number of personnel. Jean is also co-designing a computer-based
adaptive tutor for improving the reading comprehension of adult readers.
Jean is a
member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), and the Cognitive
Science Society. She was one of the founding members of the Cognitive
Engineering and Decision-Making Technical Group within HFES. Jean serves on the
Editorial Board of the Human Factors journal.
Past Medin Series Presentations (2004)
Lunch 'n' Learn Series, 2008 lectures 2007
lectures 2006
lectures 2005 lectures
Virtual Reality Assets for Assessment, Therapy and Rehabilitation
Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D.
Institute for Creative Technologies and The School of Gerontology
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.
arizzo@usc.edu
Nov. 30, 2004
1:00 p.m.
IST Classrooms
Virtual Reality (VR) has now emerged as a promising tool in many
domains of assessment, therapy and rehabilitation (Rizzo, Schultheis, Kerns &
Mateer, 2004; Weiss & Jessel, 1998; Zimand, Anderson, Gershon, Graap, Hodges, &
Rothbaum, 2002; Glantz, Rizzo & Graap, 2003). Continuing advances in VR
technology along with concomitant system cost reductions have supported the
development of more usable, useful, and accessible VR systems that can uniquely
target a wide range of physical, psychological, and cognitive rehabilitation
concerns and research questions. What makes VR application development in the
therapy and rehabilitation sciences so distinctively important is that it
represents more than a simple linear extension of existing computer technology
for human use. VR offers the potential to create systematic human testing,
training and treatment environments that allow for the precise control of
complex dynamic 3D stimulus presentations, within which sophisticated
interaction, behavioral tracking and performance recording is possible. Much
like an aircraft simulator serves to test and train piloting ability, virtual
environments can be developed to present simulations designed to assess and
rehabilitate human functional performance under a range of stimulus conditions
that are not easily deliverable and controllable in the real world. When
combining such assets within the context of relevant, ecologically enhanced
Virtual Environments, a fundamental advancement could emerge in how human
performance can be addressed in many rehabilitation disciplines. This talk will
provide a brief introduction to VR and describe the assets that are available
with VR applications in assessment, therapy and rehabilitation. Within that
context, examples of virtual environments that illustrate each asset will be
presented. The value of a multidisciplinary approach for the design and
implementation of VR will be emphasized with examples spanning the fields of
rehabilitation, psychology, neuroscience, physical therapy, occupational
therapy, special education and social work.
IHMC - A Habitat for Innovation
Kenneth M. Ford
June 9, 2004
11 a.m.
IST Classrooms
45 minute lecture followed by 15 minutes of discussion
Kenneth Ford will survey the activities at the Institute for Human & Machine
Cognition (IHMC), established in the early '90s as a research unit of the
University of West Florida. At its inception, IHMC consisted of two part-time
employees and occupied one small room. In its first decade, IHMC has grown into
one of the nation's premier IT-related research institutes with over 115
researchers and staff. Researchers at IHMC pioneer ground-breaking technologies
aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities.
Our human-centered approach results in systems
that can be regarded as cognitive prostheses, much as eyeglasses are a sort of
ocular prosthesis. Our systems fit the human and machine components together in
ways that exploit their respective strengths and mitigate their respective
weaknesses. The design and fit of computational prostheses require a broader
interdisciplinary range than is typically found in one organization, and IHMC
staff includes computer scientists, cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists,
physicians, philosophers, engineers and social scientists of various stripes,
as well as some people who resist all attempts to classify them. Innovation is
place-based.
IHMC's presence in the heart of historic
downtown Pensacola allows continuous interactions and frequent collisions of
people and ideas. This stimulating, human-scale urban environment is rapidly
becoming a habitat for innovation. IHMC currently occupies 32,000-sq. ft. of
space in two buildings renovated building in the historic district. In
addition, IHMC has recently opened an office in Silicon Valley.
See
http://www.ihmc.us/index.php and
http://www.uwf.edu/uwfMain/
Kenneth Ford is Founder and Director of the Institute for Human &
Machine Cognition (IHMC). Ford's research interests include: artificial
intelligence, cognitive science, human-centered computing, and entrepreneurship
in government and academia. Ford is the author of over a hundred scientific
papers and five books. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Tulane
University. He is the Editor-in-Chief of AAAI/MIT Press and has been the editor
of several journals. Dr. Ford is a Fellow of the American Association for
Artificial Intelligence.
In January 1997, Dr. Ford was asked by NASA to
develop and direct its new Center of Excellence in Information Technology at
the Ames Research Center. He served as Associate Center Director and Director
of NASA's Center of Excellence in Information Technology. Dr. Ford was awarded
the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 1999. Dr. Ford serves on numerous
charitable, government, and corporate boards. In October of 2002, President
George W. Bush nominated Dr. Ford to serve on the National Science Board. His
nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March of 2003.
Evolution of the Standard
Simulation Architecture
Jeffery S. Steinman, RAM Laboratories
May 10, 2004
11:00 a.m.
IST's Classroom C
A 45 minute presentation will be followed by 15 minutes
of discussion.
This seminar provides an
overview of the proposed Standard Simulation Architecture (SSA) that addresses
interoperability between (1) simulations in a federated environment, (2)
entities within a simulation potentially executing in a parallel and/or
distributed environment, and (3) components residing within entities. These
three categories of composability have different peer-to-peer interoperability
overheads that must be addressed specifically. The SSA defines a highly
flexible infrastructure to map federates, entities, and components to hardware
systems. The proposed Standard Simulation Architecture is defined in abstract
layers of functionality with well-defined interfaces to promote technology
infusion from R&D organizations such as universities, government laboratories,
and industry. This seminar will provide an overview of these layers and their
supported composable modeling approach.
Dr. Jeffrey S. Steinman
received his Ph.D. in High Energy Physics from the University of California,
Los Angeles in 1988. He has been involved in numerous parallel and distributed
simulation programs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Metron Inc, and RAM
Laboratories. As the principle developer of the Synchronous Parallel
Environment for Emulation and Discrete Event Simulation (SPEEDES) framework,
Dr. Steinman has provided technical oversight on a number of very large DoD
simulation programs including: JSIMS, MDWAR, EADTB, JMASS, HPC-RTI, JSAF, and
others. This work resulted in five patents and more than 40 technical papers in
the area of parallel discrete event simulation. Dr. Steinman is currently
serving as Vice President and Chief Science & Research Officer with RAM
Laboratories, Inc.
Human Language Technology at the Naval Research Laboratory
Elaine Marsh
January 29,
2004
10:00 AM
IST's Classrooms.
A 45 minute presentation will be followed by 15 minutes of discussion.
The Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial
Intelligence (NCARAI) has been involved in both basic and applied research in
artificial intelligence since its inception in 1982. The research program of
the center is directed toward understanding the design and operation of
computer systems capable of improved performance based on experience; efficient
and effective interaction with other systems and with humans; sensor-based
control of autonomous activity; and the integration of varieties of reasoning
as necessary to support complex decision-making. The emphasis at NCARAI is the
linkage of theory and application in demonstration projects that use a full
spectrum of artificial intelligence techniques.
The center's Multi-Modal Multi-Media Systems
section performs exploratory research in the area of man-machine interactions,
specifically natural language and multi-modal interfaces, natural language and
speech system evaluation, and textual knowledge management. This talk will
present an overview of the various research projects developing natural
language man-machine communication capabilities.
(See http://www.aic.nrl.navy.mil)
Elaine Marsh is section head and group leader for the Multi-Modal Multi-Media
Systems section in the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial
Intelligence at the Naval Research Laboratory, where she has been employed
since February 1983.
She has conducted basic and exploratory research
in the areas of interactive systems, specifically natural language and
multi-modal interfaces, natural language and speech system evaluation, and
textual knowledge management.
Prior to joining the Naval Research Laboratory,
she was employed as a research scientist on the
Linguistic String Project at New York University. Her current research
interests include discourse analysis in natural language, human-machine
interfaces, speech for virtual worlds, knowledge representation for narrative
texts, and human-language system evaluation.
IST Research Grant Series Lectures
The Simulation Dependence Graph
Keith Garfield
Tuesday, March 14, 2004
1:00 p.m.
IST Progress Drive building
The Simulation Dependence Graph (SDG), is a novel
graphical representation of simulation systems. It was developed at IST by
adapting the Program Dependence Graph (PDG) to the simulation domain. The PDG,
and the related Java System Dependence Graph (JSDG), is a popular program
representation used in computer science and software engineering that allows
sophisticated program analysis. The SDG variation of the PDG captures critical
dependences among simulation attributes to allow analysis of the computations
comprising the simulation and their relationships to one another. Based on the
success and widespread use of the PDG, development of the SDG will provide a
powerful analytical tool to the Modeling and Simulation Community at large.
SDG
is composed of a node set and three edge sets. The node set represents
attributes of the real world entities being simulated, their allowable value
ranges, and the functions that update the attribute values during the course of
a simulation. The three edge sets represent data dependences, entity
memberships, and sequencing constraints. The data dependence edges explicitly
model input-output interactions between attributes; this information can be
used to analyze and optimize system behavior in the same manner that modern
optimizing compilers perform program data-flow analysis. The entity membership
edges explicitly associate attributes belonging to the same physical entity;
this information can be used to distribute entity-dependent behaviors and
constraint across a set of nodes representing a single simulated object. The
sequencing constraint edges explicitly represent the order in which attribute
values are updated; these edges may be used to demonstrate the efficiency of
one manner of scheduling tasks over another. The sequencing edges may model
uni-processor or parallel processor environments.
The advantages of representing simulations in
this format are many. Graphs are well-known and understood mathematical
structures that have been proven to be useful in a many problem domains. More
specifically, PDG’s have been shown valuable in the areas of automated program
optimization and performance enhancement. Program analysis techniques
developed using the PDG may be leveraged to allow static and dynamic analyses
of simulation systems. Candidate problems are listed below:
-
Syntactic
composability can be determined from the graph structure.
-
Semantic
composability may be approximated by extending PDG analysis techniques such
as “program slicing” to the SDG.
-
Improvements to
event scheduling may be attained by adapting optimizing techniques used in
compilers. These techniques involve specialized analysis such as “program
slicing” to identify past computations affecting a current computation.