A real-time motion engine for interactive synthetic characters, either virtual or physical, needs to allow expressivity and interactivity of motion in order to maintain the illusion of life. Canned animation examples from an animator or motion capture device are expressive,…

This dissertation investigates how rapid learning occurs in high technology industries, many of which operate in what Bourgeois and Eisenhardt (1988) term "high velocity environments." The dissertation consists of three empirical studies, which follow the method of extended case study…

The climate of the reception of immigrants to the United States has soured, and circumstances are becoming increasingly difficult for persons seeking to gain residency. Reasons often given for the reversal in this practice are that immigrants are poor, uneducated,…

Understanding the biological signals encoded in a genome is a key challenge of computational biology. These signals are encoded in the four-nucleotide alphabet of DNA and are responsible for all molecular processes in the cell. In particular, the genome contains…

This thesis explores how doctors and nurses use documents to share their knowledge within and across healthcare settings. In addressing this question I draw on a 15-month, multi-sited ethnographic study in several pediatric health care settings, following patients from primary…

Previous research on corporate household and corporate householding has presented
examples, literature review, and working definitions. In this paper, we first improve our
understanding of the area by developing a typology of corporate householding tasks
and knowledge…

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the knowledge and beliefs about malaria transmission and practices for vector control in eight villages on the coastal plain of Chiapas, Mexico. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted during May and June 1995 in Chiapas,…

OBJECTIVE: To assess school teachers' level of knowledge on prevention of viral hepatitis (VH). MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in three cities of Brazil, from August to November of 1999. The sample was composed of 360 subjects:…

SweetDeal is a rule-based approach to representation of business contracts that enables software agents to create, evaluate, negotiate, and execute contracts with substantial automation and modularity. It builds upon the situated courteous logic programs knowledge representation in RuleML, the emerging…

This paper reports the findings of a study undertaken in four Nova Scotia public schools of twelfth grade students' information seeking strategies when they use the Internet as an information source. Various Nova Scotia Department of Education curriculum documents hold…