Simeon J. Simoff

Understanding virtual design studios

One: Basic Concepts.- One: The Concept of A Virtual Design Studio.- 1.1 Scenario.- 1.2 Experiences.- 1.3 Observations.- 1.4 Directions.- References.- Two: Network Technology.- 2.1 TCP/IP Communication.- 2.2 The Internet.- 2.3 The World Wide Web.- 2.4 Implications.- References.- Three: Digital Design Media.- 3.1 Images.- 3.2 CAD and 3D Models.- 3.3 Text.- 3.4 Hypermedia.- 3.5 Summary.- References.- Two: Communication and Representation.- Four: Communication in a Virtual Environment.- 4.1 Computer Mediated Communication.- 4.2 Communication Tools.- 4.2.1 Asynchronous Tools: Email, List Servers, Bulletin Boards.- Email.- List Servers.- Bulletin Boards.- 4.2.2 Synchronous Tools: Chat, Video Conference, Broadcast.- IRC, ICQ and Chatting Systems.- Video Conference.- Broadcast.- 4.3 Virtual Worlds.- 4.3.1 Communication in a Text-Based VW.- 4.3.2 Navigation in Text-Based VW.- 4.3.3 Actions in a Text-Based VW.- 4.4 Use Of Communication Tools in a VDS.- 4.4.1 Effective Use Of Communication Tools in a VDS.- 4.4.2 Alternative Communication Channels.- 4.5 Summary.- References.- Five: Shared Representation in a Vds.- 5.1. The Roles of Shared Representation.- 5.2. Structuring Shared Representations as Hypermedia.- 5.2.1 Structural Consistency.- 5.2.2 Labels And Information Retrieval.- 5.2.3 Dynamic Versus Static Linking.- 5.3 The Content of Shared Representation.- 5.3.1 Activity/Space Ontology.- 5.3.2 Function/Behaviour/Structure Ontology.- 5.4 Shared Representation - Ontology and Hypermedia.- References.- Three: The Shared Environment.- Six: The Distributed Design Studio.- 6.1 Loosely Coupled Desktop.- 6.1.1 Integration Agreements and Interface Design.- 6.1.2 Management and Collaboration.- 6.1.3 Communication and Collaboration.- 6.1.4 Handling Project Information, Library Support and Documentation.- 6.1.5 Diversity and Discontinuity in Loosely Coupled VDS.- 6.2 The Tightly Integrated VDS Desktop.- 6.2.1 Integration Agreements and Interface Design.- 6.2.2 Management and Collaboration.- 6.2.3 Communication and Collaboration.- 6.2.4 Handling Project Information, Library Support and Documentation.- 6.2.5 Customisation and Further Automation in a Tightly Integrated VDS.- 6.3 Recapitulation.- References.- Seven: A Centralised VDS Environment.- 7.1 The Desktop Metaphor.- 7.1.1 Habanera.- 7.1.2 TeamWave.- 7.2 The Place Metaphor.- 7.2.2 Virtual Realities.- Colony City.- Activeworlds.- The Cave Environment.- 7.2.3 Virtual Worlds.- StudioMOO.- 7.3 Beyond Metaphors.- References.- Epilogue.- Appendix: Web Resources.- A.1 General Information for Virtual Design Studios.- A.2 Communication Resources.- A.3 Virtual Worlds.- Author Information.

Analysing participation in collaborative design environments

Abstract Computer-supported collaborative design can be realised by a broad range of collaborative environments, each facilitating a different kind of collaboration. Understanding the style of collaboration and the potential for each environment is important when choosing a particular technology. We have developed a virtual world approach to teaching design computing in which students learn through traditional lectures, online seminars, and collaborative design projects. The environment integrates both synchronous and asynchronous communication as well as shared documentation. One side effect of using this environment is the incremental development of a record of the communication and collaboration. This record can be the basis for the analysis of participation in collaboration. We show how text analysis as a part of data mining can be used to analyse different aspects of participation. Specifically, we analyse participation in synchronous communication to evaluate individual contribution. We then analyse asynchronous communication to evaluate the extent of collaboration. The methods presented can be an automated part of the collaborative environment providing information for student evaluation in an educational environment or individual contribution in a professional environment.

An experimental study of computer mediated collaborative design

Recent developments in network technology and multi user software allow computer mediated collaborative design (CMCD), where the computer enables two designers to communicate and work together while in different places. Research in integrated and collaborative design identify the need to capture design semantics as well as decisions about the final physical product. We describe an experimental study of computer mediated collaborative design that considers how designers communicate design semantics and whether there is more or less design semantics captured in a collaborative session. The development of the experiment required the definition of an hypothesis, aim, methodology, and data coding schemes. This methodology can be used to develop formal studies of CMCD. Although the statistical results of our experiment are inconclusive, the observations indicate there is less information recorded during a CMCD session than when working alone.

Opening new dimensions for e-Tourism

In this paper we describe an e-Tourism environment that takes a community-driven approach to foster a lively society of travelers who exchange travel experiences, recommend tourism destinations or just listen to catch some interesting gossip. Moreover, business transactions such as booking a trip or getting assistance from travel advisors or community members are constituent parts of this environment. All these happen in an integrated, game-like e-Business application where each e-Tourist is impersonated as an avatar. More precisely, we apply 3D Electronic Institutions, a framework developed and employed in the area of multi-agent systems, to the tourism domain. The system interface is realized by means of a 3D game engine that provides sophisticated 3D visualization and enables humans to interact with the environment. We present “itchy feet”, a prototype implementing this 3D e-Tourism environment to showcase first visual impressions. This new environment is a perfect research playground for examining heterogeneous societies comprising humans and software agents, and their relationship in e-Tourism.

Leading conversations: Communication behaviours of emergent leaders in virtual teams

Virtual teams and their leaders are key players in global organisations. Using teams of workers dispersed temporally and geographically has changed the way people work in groups and has redefined the nature of teamwork. Emergent leadership issues in computer-mediated communication are vital today because of the increasing prevalence of the virtual organisation, the flattening of organisational structures and the corresponding interest in managing virtual groups and teams. This paper examines the communication behaviours of participants in two different case studies to determine if number, length and content of messages are sufficient criteria to identify emergent leaders in asynchronous and synchronous environments. The methodology used can be embedded in collaborative virtual environments as technology for detecting potential leaders.

Recommender System Based on Consumer Product Reviews

Consumer reviews, opinions and shared experiences in the use of a product is a powerful source of information about consumer preferences that can be used in recommender systems. Despite the importance and value of such information, there is no comprehensive mechanism that formalizes the opinions selection and retrieval process and the utilization of retrieved opinions due to the difficulty of extracting information from text data. In this paper, a new recommender system that is built on consumer product reviews is proposed. A prioritizing mechanism is developed for the system. The proposed approach is illustrated using the case study of a recommender system for digital cameras

Collaboratively Designing Within the Design

Design studios are places where designers work alone or collaboratively on design projects. Most design studios are now incorporating some collection of computer-based tools for handling electronic documents and communication. Following the traditional office paradigm large amounts of project data files (such as drawings, documents, spreadsheets, databases, manuals, forms, communications, schedules and discussions) move around the studio from one computer workplace to another, where they are processed on the individual designer’s ‘desktop’. The use of fileserver technology is usually reduced to the most rudimentary operations of moving files from one shared disk to another. Sometimes the same information is unnecessarily duplicated, sometimes important files remain either locked on the personal computer or lost somewhere on a barely navigable list of shared directories on a file server.

Mining Multimedia and Complex Data

Today’s technology makes it possible to easily access huge amounts of complex data. As a consequence, techniques are needed for accessing the semantics of such data and supporting the user in selecting relevant information. While meta-languages such as XML have been proposed, they are not suitable for complex data such as images, video, sounds or any other non-verbal channel of communication, because those data have very subjective semantics, i.e., whose interpretation varies over time and between subjects. Yet, providing access to subjective semantics is becoming critical with the significant increase in interactive systems such as web-based systems or socially interactive robots. In this work, we attempt to identify the requirements for providing access to the subjective semantics of complex data. In particular, we focus on how to support the analysis of those dimensions that give rise to multiple subjective interpretations of the data. We propose a data warehouse as a support for the mining process involved. A unique characteristic of the data warehouse lays in its ability to store multiple hierarchical descriptions of the multimedia data.

Travel agents vs. online booking : tackling the shortcomings of nowadays online tourism portals

In this paper we present the findings of a study that aims at identifying the reasons that let many people still rely on traditional travel agents instead of booking their trips online. The prime motivation for investigating this issue is that it is impossible to have direct experience with the product prior to consumption in the domain of tourism. The Internet provides a powerful environment for the creation of virtual representations of tourism destinations allowing indirect experience that greatly surpasses the possibilities of traditional travel agents. However, the results of the study show that social interaction with travel agents, their expertise and the possibility to save time on search can be of even higher importance. So, we derived the “best of both sides” and suggest the application of an established methodology in the area of multi-agent systems, namely 3D Electronic Institutions, to the tourism domain in order to satisfy the growing demand on human assistance related to online inquiries and to offer customers cutting-edge visualization facilities.

Informing the curious negotiator: automatic news extraction from the internet

Information acquisition and validation play an important role in the decision making process during negotiation. In this chapter we briefly present the framework of a smart data mining system for providing contextual information extracted from the Internet to a negotiation agent. We then present one of its components in more details – an effective automated technique for extracting relevant articles from news web sites, so that they can be used further by the mining agents. Most current techniques experience difficulties in coping with changes in web site structure and formats. The proposed extraction process is completely automatic and independent of web site formats. Proposed technique identifies regularities in both format and content of news web sites. The algorithms are applicable to both single- and multi-document web sites. Since invalid URLs can cause errors in data extraction, we also present a method for the negotiation agent to estimate the validity of the extracted data based on the frequency of the relevant words in the news title. Once the news articles are extracted the next task is to construct sets of given articles. This chapter presents a new procedure for constructing news data sets on given topics. The extracted news data set is further utilised by the parties involved in negotiation. The information retrieved from the data set can support both human and automated negotiators.