Bells, VR, models, simulations

Bill Barowy (wbarowy who-is-at lesley.edu)
Thu, 24 Dec 1998 10:58:54 -0500

"And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
And excitedly tingled [her] bell."

[The hunting of the snark, Lewis Carrol}

and also FYI below is a conference announcement about VR and modeling and
simulations. You might find some of these presentations ... uh...
provocative.
Bill

>> bellman who-is-at shere-khan.aero.org
>> 12/22/98 01:56 PM
>>To: Marcie A Buscher/West/Aerospace/US who-is-at Aerospace,
>>cal who-is-at shere-khan.aero.org@Internet
>>cc: bellman who-is-at shere-khan.aero.org@Internet
>>Subject: vwschedule and cover letter
>>
>>Dear Friends and Colleagues,
>>
>>Happy Holidays to all of you! A number of you have expressed some
>curiosity to
>>know what I have been up to since leaving DARPA last year. I returned to The
>>Aerospace Corporation to start a bi-coastal Research and Development center
>>called The Aerospace Integration Sciences Center (AISC - and our motto is
>>"just ask" :-).) We are trying to help develop a science that could live up
>>to the title, and hence have been doing a great deal of work on advanced
>>analytic techniques and new mathematics, semiotics, architecture (including
>>domain specific languages), Wrappings and other integration approaches, and,
>>of course, Virtual Worlds.
>>
>>As part of the last, Chris Landauer and I started a new conference under the
>>auspices of the Society for Computer Simulation's Western Multiconference
>>called the Virtual Worlds and Simulation conference. Below is the
>preliminary
>>program for the second year of this conference. Virtual Worlds(VWs) are
>>distinguished from Virtual Reality (or perhaps, enhance the concept of
>Virtual
>>Reality) in three important ways: 1) the 'setting' is not just a picture or a
>>description of a place, but rather has underlying rules and constraints (a
>>"physics"); 2) the VW is populated by humans and a diversity of intelligent
>>agents and robots (guides, tutors, companions, librarians, and so forth); 3)
>>there are a large variety of tools and processes available from within the
>>environment (as opposed to the usual homogeneous simulation environment.)
>The
>>Virtual Worlds' community is diverse also - every field from anthropology and
>>psychology to computer science to engineering and mathematics - are required
>>to develop these new environments into places that can serve as environments
>>that allow humans to meet, learn, access all sorts of different digital
>>resources, and work with different tools and different 'agents'. We believe
>>that these 'places' are important testbeds for many different kinds of new
>>experiments: 1) for inventing new evaluation instrumentation and analyses
>(all
>>the behavior in VWs of tools, agents, and humans is capturable and
>potentially
>>analyzable); 2) for conducting both psychological and engineering experiments
>>on the design of systems that include both humans and computer-based
>>processes; 3) for studying the needed standards, contexts, and protocols for
>>heterogeneous distributed processing environments. Ok Ok I am a bit excited
>>about this area!
>>
>>If you are interested in attending, you can check the registration website
>>for the Western Multiconference www.scs.org - and look under our conference,
>>VW&SIM '99. The price is high, but there are very nice discounts for small
>>groups.
>>
>> I look forward to seeing you in the New Year,
>> Dr. Kirstie L. Bellman
>> Principal Director
>> Aerospace Integration Sciences Center
>> The Aerospace Corporation
>> bellman who-is-at aero.org
>> (310) 336-2191
>>
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>**NEW**
>>
>> VWsim'99 Conference Preliminary Program
>>
>> 18-20 January 1999
>>
>> Part of the 1999 SCS Western Multi-Conference
>>
>> Cathedral Hill Hotel, San Francisco
>>
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>There are no parallel sessions this year, which means that all participants
>>can hear all of the talks. This year, the conference has 11 presentation
>>sessions, each 90 minutes long. Each session has four talks, which are 20
>>minutes plus a short time for questions. As an experiment, there will be an
>>additional virtual session sometime in January, which has not yet been
>>scheduled in detail, to accommodate some European colleagues who cannot
>>attend in person.
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>MONDAY 18 JANUARY
>>
>> * 08:30-10:00 MONDAY 18 January: Multi-Conference Plenary Session
>>
>> Opening Session
>>
>> Invited Keynote Address: ``Adaptive Intelligent Agents'', Barbara
>> Hayes-Roth, Stanford U., Stanford, California
>>
>> * 10:30-12:00 MONDAY 18 January: Avatars
>> o Invited VWsim Keynote Address: ``Staffing the Web with Interactive
>> Characters'', Barbara Hayes-Roth, Stanford U., Stanford,
>> California
>> o ``An Interaction Model for Avatar-Habilis, with Capabilities to
>> Use Tools in 3D-MUVEs'', Yoshiaki Araki, Graduate School of Media
>> and Governance, Keio U., Japan (aly who-is-at mag.keio.ac.jp)
>> o ``Improvisational Animation'', Ken Perlin, Media Research Lab, New
>> York U. (NYU), New York (perlin who-is-at cat.nyu.edu), Athomas Goldberg,
>> Media Research Lab, NYU
>> o ``An Architecture of Co-Habited Virtual Worlds'', Christoph G.
>> Jung, German Research Center for AI (DFKI), Saarbru:cken, Germany
>> (jung who-is-at dfki.de), Ju:rgen Lind, DFKI, Christian Gerber, DFKI
>> (gerber who-is-at dfki.de), Michael Schillo, DFKI, Petra Funk, DFKI,
>> Alastair Burt, DFKI; for further information, see URL
>> http://www.dfki.de/~schillo/research/vrsim.ps
>> * 1:30-3:00 MONDAY 18 January: Modeling
>> o ``Towards a Theory of Virtual Worlds'', Kirstie Bellman, Aerospace
>> Integration Science Center, The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo,
>> California (bellman who-is-at aero.org), Abstract
>> o ``Interaction Media: Some thoughts on models for cyberspace'',
>> Vijay Saraswat, AT&T Labs - Research, New Jersey
>> (vj who-is-at research.att.com), Fernando Pereira, AT&T Labs - Research; for
>> further information, see URL http://www.research.att.com
>> o ``Virtual Biology: Simulating the Cell'', Randy Garrett, Institute
>> for Defense Analyses, Alexandria, Virginia (rgarrett who-is-at ida.org),
>> Chris Webb, Abstract
>> * 3:30-5:00 MONDAY 18 January: Time and Space
>> o ``Thrice Upon a Time'', Ralph H. Abraham, Visual Math Institute,
>> Santa Cruz, California (abraham who-is-at vismath.org); for further
>> information, see URL http://www.vismath.org.
>> o ``Virtual Time in Virtual Worlds'', Ashok K. Agrawala, U. Maryland
>> and Maryland Integration Lab, College Park, Maryland
>> (agrawala who-is-at cs.umd.edu), Suman Banerjee, U. Maryland
>> o ``Negotiation Science and Technology'', Carl Hewitt, AI Lab,
>> Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Mass.
>> (hewitt who-is-at ai.mit.edu)
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> TUESDAY 19 JANUARY
>>
>> * 8:30-10:00 TUESDAY 19 January: Simulation
>> o ``Optimistic Computations in Virtual Environments'', Maria
>> Hybinette, College of Computing, Georgia Inst. of Technology,
>> Atlanta, Georgia (ingrid who-is-at cc.gatech.edu), Richard Fujimoto, College
>> of Computing, Georgia Inst. of Technology
>> o ``Regenerative Life Support System Simulation Software'', Lee
>> Tichenor, CS Dept., Western Illinois U., Macomb, Illinois
>> (mflht who-is-at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu), Marybeth Edeen, NASA Johnson Space
>> Center, Houston, Texas
>> o ``Fractal Simulations of African-American Hairstyles'', Ron
>> Eglash, Ohio State U., Columbus, Ohio (eglash.1 who-is-at osu.edu), Gloria
>> Gilmer, Math-Tech, Inc., Jaron Sampson, Evergreen State College,
>> Abstract; for further information, see URL
>> http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/comp/eglash.dir/afmulti.htm
>> o ``Artificial Sociocognition: Cultures of Belief in Populations of
>> EleMentals'', Jim Kennedy, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U. S. Dept.
>> of Labor (Kennedy_Jim who-is-at bls.gov)
>> * 10:30-12:00 TUESDAY 19 January: Infrastructure
>> o ``A multi-agent Architecture for simulating coordination and
>> cooperation in organizational networks'', Frits van Merode, Dept.
>> of Health Org., Policy and Econ., Maastricht U., Maastricht,
>> Holland (Frits.vanMerode who-is-at beoz.unimaas.nl), Arno van Raak, Dept. of
>> Health Org., Policy and Econ., Maastricht U., Aggie Paulus, Dept.
>> of Health Org., Policy and Econ., Maastricht U., Arie Hasman,
>> Dept. of Medical Informatics, Maastricht U.
>> o ``HLA as a Distributed Virtual Worlds Architecture'', Paul T.
>> Barham, Reality by Design, Inc., Monterey, California
>> (barham who-is-at rbd.com), Randall E. Barker, Reality by Design, Inc.,
>> Joanne L. Metzger, Reality by Design, Inc.
>> o ``Influence of the Supporting Protocol on the Latencies Induced by
>> Concurrency Control Within a Large Scale Multi-User Distributed
>> Virtual Reality System'', David J. Roberts, U. Reading, Reading,
>> England (dave who-is-at cyber.reading.ac.uk), Benjamin G. Worthington, U.
>> Reading, Paul M. Sharkey, U. Reading, Johannes Strassner, GMD,
>> Sankt Augustin, Germany
>> o ``Multi-User Virtual Environments as Portals'', Christopher
>> Landauer, Aerospace Integration Science Center, The Aerospace
>> Corporation, El Segundo, California (cal who-is-at aero.org), Abstract
>> * 1:30-3:00 TUESDAY 19 January: Virtual Laboratories
>> o ``Virtual Communities in Computer-Assisted Health Education'', P.
>> Dev, SUMMIT, Stanford U., Stanford, California
>> (parvati who-is-at summit.stanford.edu), A. J. Winzelberg, Stanford U., A.
>> Celio, Stanford U., C. B. Taylor, Stanford U.
>> o ``A Real-Time Visualization System for Large Scale Urban
>> Environments'', William Jepson, Urban Simulation Lab, UCLA, Los
>> Angeles, California (bill who-is-at ucla.edu), Richard Muntz, Urban
>> Simulation Lab, UCLA, Scott Friedman, Urban Simulation Lab, UCLA
>> o ``The Virtual Lab'', M. L. Martinez Muneta, Dept. Mech. Engr., U.
>> Polytecnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, J. Felez Mindan, Dept. Mech.
>> Engr., U. Polytecnica de Madrid (jfelez who-is-at etsii.upm.es), J. M. Lopez
>> Rodriguez, Dept. Mech. Engr., U. Polytecnica de Madrid
>> o ``Virtual Support for Global Students Laboratory'', Boris
>> Berenfeld, The Concord Consortium, Concord, Massachusetts
>> (boris who-is-at concord.org), George Pachikov, Parallel Graphics, Moscow,
>> Russia
>> * 3:30-5:00 TUESDAY 19 January: Virtual and Real Museums
>> o ``The Object in Question: Museums Caught in the Net'', Cissy
>> Anklam, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian
>> Institution (Scott.Charles who-is-at nmnh.si.edu)
>> o ``Human Perception of Virtual Environments and Transparency of
>> Technology'', Steven Swimmer, Getty Information Institute, Getty
>> Center, Los Angeles, California (SSwimmer who-is-at getty.edu)
>> o ``CIMBLE: The CADETT Interactive Multi-user Business Learning
>> Environment'', Sandra Testani, The Franklin Institute,
>> Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (sandyk who-is-at fi.edu), Ed Wagner, The
>> Franklin Institute, Karl Wehden, The Franklin Institute
>> o ``Virtual Worlds as Content - Clocks for Cultural Memory'',
>> Benjamin H. Davis, Getty Information Institute, Getty Center, Los
>> Angeles, California (bdavis who-is-at getty.edu)
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY
>>
>> * 8:30-10:00 WEDNESDAY 20 January: Learning Communities
>> o ``A Multi-User Virtual Environment with Extensible User-Friendly
>> Web-Based Interfaces'', J. Mark Pullen, CS Dept. / C3I Center,
>> George Mason U., Fairfax, Virginia (mpullen who-is-at gmu.edu), Michael Nah,
>> Dept. CS, George Mason U.
>> o ``Pueblo: Value and Values that Sustain Community through
>> Transition'', Jim Walters, Phoenix College, Phoenix, Arizona
>> (walters who-is-at pc2.pc.maricopa.edu), Billie Hughes, Phoenix College
>> o ``Nerve Garden: a Virtual Terrarrium in Cyberspace'', Bruce Damer,
>> Contact Consortium, Scotts Valley, California (bdamer who-is-at ccon.org),
>> Karen Marcelo, Contact Consortium, Frank Revi, Contact Consortium,
>> Abstract; for further information see URL http://www.biota.org.
>> o ``TheU Virtual University: Steps Toward Learning in Virtual World
>> Cyberspace'', Bruce Damer, Contact Consortium (bdamer who-is-at ccon.org),
>> Stuart Gold, Contact Consortium, Abstract; for further information
>> see URL http://www.ccon.org.
>> * 10:30-12:00 WEDNESDAY 20 January: Collaboration
>> o ``Corporate Integration of Virtual Workspaces'', Lydia Leong,
>> DIGEX, Beltsville, Maryland (lydia who-is-at theurgy.digex.net)
>> o ``Effects of Apotheosis: When Human Beings Run Mechanical
>> Worlds'', Mike O'Brien, The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo,
>> California (obrien who-is-at aero.org), Abstract
>> o ``Mediating Heterogeneous Contexts with a Virtual World'', David
>> Zager, Avesta Technologies, Inc., New York, New York
>> (dza who-is-at avesta.com)
>> o ``Learn and Live: Creating online learning environments and
>> communities to support collaborative design and distributed
>> creativity'', Ted Kahn, Designworlds for Learning, San Jose,
>> California
>> * 1:30-3:00 WEDNESDAY 20 January: ONR Activities in Virtual Worlds
>> o ``Introduction to ONR activities in Virtual Worlds'', Helen
>> Gigley, ONR
>> o ``The Transfer of Strategies from Virtual to Real Environments: An
>> Explanation for Performance Differences?'', Rudolph P. Darken,
>> Dept. Computer Science, Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey,
>> California (darken who-is-at cs.nps.navy.mil), Simon R. Goerger, Dept.
>> Computer Science, NPS
>> o ``Usability Evaluation Techniques: A Novel Method for Assessing
>> the Usability of an Immersive Medical Visualization in VE'',
>> Joseph L. Gabbard, Virtual Prototyping and Simulation
>> Technologies, Inc., Blacksburg, Virginia (jgabbard who-is-at vpst.org),
>> Deborah Hix, Virginia Tech., Blacksburg, Virginia
>> o ``Virtually Collaborating with Pedagogical Agents'', W. Lewis
>> Johnson, USC / Information Sciences Institute, Marina Del Rey,
>> California (johnson who-is-at isi.edu), Jeff Rickel, USC / Information
>> Sciences Institute, Randy Stiles, Lockheed-Martin Advanced
>> Technology Center, Laurie McCarthy, Lockheed-Martin Advanced
>> Technology Center, Allen Munro, USC Behavioral Technologies Lab,
>> U. Southern California, Los Angeles, California
>> * 3:30-5:00 WEDNESDAY 20 January: Policy and Government
>> o ``Greenspaces'', Kirstie Bellman, Aerospace Integration Science
>> Center (bellman who-is-at aero.org), Kelly Levy, U. S. Dept. of Commerce,
>> Abstract
>> o ``A National Digital Library for Science, Mathematics,
>> Engineering, and Technology Education'', Frank Wattenberg, Div.
>> Undergraduate Educ., NSF (fwattenb who-is-at nsf.gov), Norman L.
>> Fortenberry, Div. Undergraduate Educ., NSF; Related work will be
>> highlighted on the web at
>> http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/DUE/programs/dli/dli2.htm.
>> o ``Patenting Inventions in the Field of Virtual Reality
>> Technology'', W. Edward Johansen, UCLA
>> o ``Government Roles in Cyberspace (Invited Panel Session)'',
>> Kirstie Bellman, Aerospace Integration Science Center
>> (bellman who-is-at aero.org), moderator
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> SOMETIME IN JANUARY
>>
>> * (TBD) Extra Virtual Session
>> o ``Socially Situated Life-Like Agents'', Kerstin Dautenhahn, Dept.
>> Cybernetics, U. Reading (kd who-is-at cyber.reading.ac.uk)
>>
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>File="http://www.cs.umd.edu/~cal/VWsim/schedule-vwsim99.html",
>>Last Modified 14:40 PST, 15 December 1998 by cal who-is-at aero.org
>>
>>
>

Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Technology in Education
Lesley College, 31 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]