Deictic pointing—pointing at things during conversations—is natural and ubiquitous in human communication. Deictic pointing is important in the real world; it is also important in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) because CVEs are 3D virtual environments that resemble the real world. CVEs connect people from different locations, allowing them to communicate and collaborate remotely. However, the interaction and communication capabilities of CVEs are not as good as those in the real world. In CVEs, people interact with each other using avatars (the visual representations of users). One problem of avatars is that they are not expressive enough when compare to what we can do in the real world. In particular, deictic pointing has many limitations and is not well supported. This dissertation focuses on improving the expressiveness of distant pointing—where referents are out of reach—in desktop CVEs. This is done by developing a framework that guides the design and development of pointing techniques; by identifying important aspects of distant pointing through observation of how people point at distant referents in the real world; by designing, implementing, and evaluating distant-pointing techniques; and by providing a set of guidelines for the design of distant pointing in desktop CVEs. The evaluations of distant-pointing techniques examine whether pointing without extra visual effects (natural pointing) has sufficient accuracy; whether people can control free arm movement (free pointing) along with other avatar actions; and whether free and natural pointing are useful and valuable in desktop CVEs. Overall, this research provides better support for deictic pointing in CVEs by improving the expressiveness of distant pointing. With better pointing support, gestural communication can be more effective and can ultimately enhance the primary function of CVEs—supporting distributed collaboration.

This paper presents the results of a workplace study of two smaller companies in the design industry. The core issue has been to investigate the companies use of technical tools and to what extent social praxis influence the daily work. The methods used are based on a qualitative analysis of interviews and observations. Various kind of work procedures, such as verbal and computerized, have been identified, but the most important occurrence was how spontaneous conversations between employees required certain flexibility, since the actors repeatedly were required to change focus and quickly perceive different information. For that reason, a thesis has been defined regarding how the use of spontaneous communication put an indirect need of a flexible working environment and also how this lead to more significant participation and exchange of information, as well as more awareness at the companies.

Cross-media games are evolving as a new exciting platform for gaming where different devices are used to create a type of game play were a variant of devices, such as mobile phones and laptops are used. This thesis investigates the possibility of merging cross-media games into the domain of Mobile Learning to create a type of mobile learning game where collaboration becomes a vital part of the game play and style enhances collaboration between the users. By studying cross-media games, key features are captured and converted into requirements that are realised in a prototype that enables cross-media gaming with the intention of creating an environment in which learning could be supported. The development process of the prototype is described and evaluated in the thesis. The result presents a categorization of the key features for cross-media gaming and a prototype of a cross-media game. The thesis investigates which are the key technical features for creating cross-medial games for learning that can be identified for supporting the development process? The results presents a categorization of identified features along with potential future work based on the thesis. It is shown that features related to data sharing are highly prioritized and that certain features are absolutely required to enable cross-media gaming whilst others have less priority.

Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) carriers generally serve geographical regions that are more localized than the inter-city routes served by truckload carriers. That localization can lead to urban freight transportation routes that overlap. If trucks are traveling with less than full loads there may exist opportunities for carriers to collaborate over such routes. That is, Carrier A will also deliver one or more shipments of Carrier B. This will improve vehicle asset utilization and reduce asset-repositioning costs, and may also lead to reduced congestion and pollution in cities. We refer to the above coordination as “collaborative routing”. In our framework for collaboration, we also propose that carriers exchange goods at logistics platforms located at the entry point to a city. This is referred to as “entry-point collaboration”. One difficulty in collaboration is the lack of facilities to allow transfer of goods between carriers. We highlight that the reduction in pollution and congestion under our proposed framework will give the city government an incentive to support these initiatives by providing facilities. Further, our analysis has shown that contrary to the poor benefits reported by previous work on vehicle routing with transshipment, strategic location of transshipment facilities in urban areas may solve this problem and lead to large cost savings from transfer of loads between carriers. We also present a novel integrated three-phase solution method. Our first phase uses either a modified tabu search, or a guided local search, to solve the vehicle routing problems with time windows that result from entry-point collaboration. The preceding methods use a constraint programming engine for feasibility checks. The second phase uses a quad-tree search to locate facilities. Quad-tree search methods are popular in computer graphics, and for grid generation in fluid simulation. These methods are known to be efficient in partitioning a two-dimensional space for storage and computation. We use this efficiency to search a two-dimensional region and locate possible transshipment facilities. In phase three, we employ an integrated greedy local search method to build collaborative routes, using three new transshipment-specific moves for neighborhood definition. We utilize an optimization module within local search to combine multiple moves at each iteration, thereby taking efficient advantage of information from neighborhood exploration. Extensive computational tests are done on random data sets which represent a city such as Toronto. Sensitivity analysis is performed on important parameters to characterize the situations when collaboration will be beneficial. Overall results show that our proposal for collaboration leads to 12% and 15% decrease in route distance and time, respectively. Average asset utilization is seen to increase by about 5% as well.

This thesis investigates the hypothesis that creative social entrepreneurs facilitate collaborative governance in the Saskatoon city-region by being the primary creators of social capital. Governance, both its quality and form, is essential in facilitating social, cultural, and economic development at the city-region level. Collaborative governance is a form of governance that enables a community to mobilize all of its assets (individuals, associations, and institutions) in all sectors of society (industry, government, and civil society) to address issues of need and to create new growth. The quality of governance at the city-region level is directly influenced by the level of social capital in the city-region. It is widely acknowledged that members of Richard Floridas creative class drive Promethean-like economic development. However, the creative class is not monolithic; members of the creative class can choose to be involved in society in many different ways. The benefits that members of the creative class can have on a society when they act socially have been largely ignored in the literature. Creative social entrepreneurs characterized by their creativity, horizontal hypermobility, preference for involvement in participatory activities, and desire for quasi-anonymity (weak ties)facilitate the governance of society by creating social capital (societal level social capital, associational level social capital, and individual level social capital). The thesis presents and analyses the output from a survey of 30 creative social entrepreneurs from government, business, civil society, and the university in the Saskatoon city-region. This survey was used to measure the level of creativity (professional and informal creativity) and entrepreneurial capacity of the participants, as well as map their social networks. Using social networks analysis (SNA) three measures of centrality (closeness centrality, betweens centrality, and eigenvector centrality) were used to examine the impact that creative social entrepreneurs play in social capital creation. The results from this analysis did not explicitly support the hypothesis that creative social entrepreneurs play a key role in social capital creation and the facilitation of governance at the city-region level. However, there was a positive correlation between professional creativity and all three measures of centrality. Not all innovators impact social capital creation. However, those professional innovators that do act socially are positioned in community networks to be the primary creators of social capital.

While service and support delivery for youth and families has been a priority within education in Saskatchewan for the past thirty years, educators and schools struggle to respond to the changing and often complex needs of students and families today.<p> The primary purpose of this study was to formulate a conceptual framework to explore the construct of social capital and the variables affecting social capital creation, acquisition and mobility. My secondary purpose was to then use network inquiry to investigate how networks of relations in a school community could be invested in and utilized to increase sources of social capital in an educational context for educators, students and families. As both an interpretive qualitative study and a critical qualitative study, this dissertation used focus groups to explore the experiences and sense-making of 16 participants in an educational setting to answer questions regarding social capital.<p> Having used network inquiry to investigate existing levels of social capital in a school community and the opportunities for social capital growth, the findings affirm the potential of network inquiry to contribute to the discourse on service delivery in schools. Furthermore, by identifying the academic and non-academic variables that contributed to successful collaborative partnerships and the determinants for increased capacity, process is emphasized before outcome, which holds potential for promising practices. Finally, because this study was conducted in an educational context, this may help policy makers to provide a framework to investigate processes for optimum service delivery and to frame educational policies for improved outcomes for youth and families.

Cost control and rapid response to market changes have become keys to survival of modern enterprises, especially during today¡¦s ever-increasing business competitions. Communication obstacles such as information inconsistency and delays still exist among members of supply chains, leading to problems like inventory turnover decline and lead time stretch, and eventually are resulting inefficient reactions to the demand of final customers. In recent years, a number of firms have begun to adopt various electronic supply chain management systems to enhance the quality and efficiency of business communication among their suppliers. These systems have helped businesses parties simplify their communication time and enhance business partnerships and alliances, thus enhanced their overall competitive advantages. In additional, the wide implementation of such information technology is promoting healthy integration among industries towards much more efficient supply chains. In a typical supply chain management scenario, businesses with ineffective operation management capability are often disturbed by rapid changes in market demands, short product life cycles, and lacks of integration from levels of suppliers, because the curial marketing information has not been efficiently delivered to proper functional departments, disabling the entire organization to reflect the changing demands and market conditions. This study is aimed to business and industrial models on examining firms¡¦ competitive advantages and their relationship with suppliers. Based on the result of the analysis, it would be the reference to build up the system of e-procurement. Moreover, in market-based systems, it always exits supply-demand relationship between suppliers and buyer powers, when facing high supplier power; companies should provide sufficient information to negotiate with the suppliers. The research is on the basis of Taiwan optoelectronic industry to investigate the companies of the TFT-LCD panel, and the supply chains of the industry. In analyzing the main TFT-LCD panel providers, the paper will probe into TFT-LCD firms to import e- procurement system by building the CPFR mechanism to improve the reaction capacity of businesses and to respond to the market rapid change. The study exerts simulation software, Arena, to conduct simulation and improvement of such models,then according to the simulation results to utilize them as a reference to purchasing cooperative enterprise into the future operation.

The purpose of this study was to explore collaborative English language learning beyond formal classrooms. On the basis of Vygotsky¡¦s socio-cultural perspective, specific focus was placed on English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners¡¦ collective scaffolding and tension they experienced during the collaboration. The researcher utilized case study to design this research. Participants were eleven EFL learners who were non-English majors in a university and who joined the same English self-access community together. The period of data collection was from middle-March to early-October, 2009, during which the researcher conducted observation, interview, and document collection. Constant comparison method was used at the early stage of data analysis. Further analysis was influenced by the concepts of tension (Kramer, 2004; Montgomery, 1993; Spielmann & Radnofsky, 2001) and collaborative strategies, such as problematizing move (Ming & Law, 2006; Reiser, 2004). Three findings of this study were reported. First, these learners practiced collective scaffolding by co-shaping norms and co-constructing English knowledge. Second, during collective scaffolding, these learners experienced two kinds of tension. One of the tensions was their shared difficulties in developing English knowledge and maintaining English activities. When these learners could not overcome these difficulties, they terminated their English activities, which was negative for their collective scaffolding. The other tension was their conflictive voices deriving from different perceptions of English learning. When these learners were able to show their empathy toward conflictive voices among peers, they were more likely to handle these conflicts to practice collective scaffolding. Although this study centered on how these EFL learners assisted one another¡¦s learning, it also discovered that most EFL learners in this study highlighted the tutor¡¦s role in helping peer collaboration. Discussions of this study are as follows: 1) these learners¡¦ practice of collective scaffolding echoes Wenger¡¦s (1998) community of practice; 2) tension these learners experienced shows the importance of developing regular and predictable learning routines and maintaining the balance between product-orientation and process-orientation for learning; 3) these learners¡¦ concern about peers¡¦ English proficiency reflects their investment in distributing group resources and cultivating English knowledge. This study provides three implications for English learning and teaching. First, it is suggested that English language learners who participate in English self-access communities respect others¡¦ perceptions of English learning, so that peer collaboration for English learning can be enhanced. Second, English language learners are encouraged to cultivate their autonomous and active learning through developing and joining an English self-access community. Third, English teachers or tutors are encouraged to gain understanding about how to assist peer interaction appropriately in order to support collaborative learning. Finally, four directions for further studies are offered: 1) further studies can compare different English self-access communities to offer multiple perspectives on collaborative learning beyond classrooms; 2) further studies can investigate the assistance of tutors to understand the importance of expert scaffolding in peer collaboration; 3) further studies can analyze the role of a leader in different contexts of an English self-access community to examine how the leader can influence and enhance the practice of collective scaffolding; 4) further studies can examine the influences of distinct genders, majors, and media on collective scaffolding.

This research examines interviews conducted with more than a dozen authorities in architectural education on collaborative methodologies utilized in the design studio and identifies factors that inhibit and facilitate the incorporation of collaborative methods in the context of situated learning. This research explores the notion that the design and implementation of even the simplest architectural projects are almost exclusively collaborative endeavors requiring the expertise of a spectrum of individuals working together to achieve a singular goal. Each of these experts is highly trained in their respective areas, yet few are formally trained authorities in the skills of collaboration, including architects, individuals who are often put at the lead of design projects which include people of varied backgrounds, working styles and areas of expertise. Historically, the education of an architect has been a highly individualized pursuit, focused on the development of an individual skill set seldom requiring collaboration beyond that of student and professor. While this individualized, hands on approach to education has been highly revered by many, it often falls short of its potential and fails to recognize that the greatest design accomplishments of humankind have been the undertaking of collaborative enterprise. Furthermore, architecture students are being prepared in a manner that is contrary to the highly collaborative nature of the architectural practice they will enter without taking away from the inherent strengths of the traditional architectural education. Despite NAAB requirements for collaborative methods in the classroom, and an increasingly collaborative model of professional practice for architects, design education continues to trail woefully behind other disciplines such as business, law, nursing and medicine; each having long ago integrated collaborative study models into their curriculum. This research examines how collaborative methods including intradisciplinary, interdisciplinary and community based collaborations, can be further integrated as a formal part of the overall design curriculum and what factors facilitate and inhibit this inclusion.

The development of telerobotic systems has evolved from Single Operator Single Robot (SOSR) systems to Multiple Operator Multiple Robot (MOMR) systems. The relationship between human operators and robots follows the master-slave control architecture and the requests for controlling robot actuation are completely generated by human operators. Recently, the fast evolving advances in network and computer technologies and decreasing size and cost of sensors and robots enable us to further extend the MOMR system architecture to incorporate heterogeneous components such as humans, robots, sensors, and automated agents. The requests for controlling robot actuation are generated by all the participants. We term it as the MOMR++ system. However, to reach the best potential and performance of the system, there are many technical challenges needing to be addressed. In this dissertation, we address two major challenges in the MOMR++ system development. We first address the robot coordination and planning issue in the application of an autonomous crowd surveillance system. The system consists of multiple robotic pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras assisted with a fixed wide-angle camera. The wide-angle camera provides an overview of the scene and detects moving objects, which are required for close-up views using the PTZ cameras. When applied to the pedestrian surveillance application and compared to a previous work, the system achieves increasing number of observed objects by over 210% in heavy traffic scenarios. The key issue here is given the limited number (e.g., p (p > 0)) of PTZ cameras and many more (e.g., n (n >> p)) observation requests, how to coordinate the cameras to best satisfy all the requests. We formulate this problem as a new camera resource allocation problem. Given p cameras, n observation requests, and [epsilon] being approximation bound, we develop an approximation algorithm running in O(n/[epsilon]³ + p²/[epsilon]⁶) time, and an exact algorithm, when p = 2, running in O(n³) time. We then address the automatic object content analysis and recognition issue in the application of an autonomous rare bird species detection system. We set up the system in the forest near Brinkley, Arkansas. The camera monitors the sky, detects motions, and preserves video data for only those targeted bird species. During the one-year search, the system reduces the raw video data of 29.41TB to only 146.7MB (reduction rate 99.9995%). The key issue here is to automatically recognize the flying bird species. We verify the bird body axis dynamic information by an extended Kalman filter (EKF) and compare the bird dynamic state with the prior knowledge of the targeted bird species. We quantify the uncertainty in recognition due to the measurement uncertainty and develop a novel Probable Observation Data Set (PODS)-based EKF method. In experiments with real video data, the algorithm achieves 95% area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Through the exploration of the two MOMR++ systems, we conclude that the new MOMR++ system architecture enables much wider range of participants, enhances the collaboration and interaction between participants so that information can be exchanged in between, suppresses the chance of any individual bias or mistakes in the observation process, and further frees humans from the control/observation process by providing automatic control/observation. The new MOMR++ system architecture is a promising direction for future telerobtics advances.