Abstract-Digital interactive information displays are becoming more common in public spaces such as museums, galleries, and libraries. However, the public nature of these locations requires special considerations concerning the design of information visualization in terms of visual representations and interaction techniques. We discuss the potential for, and challenges of, information visualization in the museum context based on our practical experience with EMDialog, an interactive information presentation that was part of the Emily Carr exhibition at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. EMDialog visualizes the diverse and multi-faceted discourse about Emily Carr, a Canadian artist, with the goal to both inform and provoke discussion. It provides a visual environment that allows for exploration of the interplay between two integrated visualizations, one for information access along temporal, and the other along contextual dimensions. We describe the results of an observational study we conducted at the museum that revealed the different ways visitors approached and interacted with EMDialog, as well as how they perceived this form of information presentation in the museum context. Our results include the need to present information in a manner sufficiently attractive to draw attention and the importance of rewarding passive observation as well as both short and longer term information exploration.Index Terms-artistic information visualization, interactive information visualization, walk-up-and-use interaction, public displays.

This paper describes a fast algorithm that selects features for conditional maximum entropy modeling. Berger et al. (1996) presents an incremental feature selection (IFS) algorithm, which computes the approximate gains for all candidate features at each selection stage, and is very time-consuming for any problems with large feature spaces. In this new algorithm, instead, we only compute the approximate gains for the top-ranked features based on the models obtained from previous stages. Experiments on WSJ data in Penn Treebank are conducted to show that the new algorithm greatly speeds up the feature selection process while maintaining the same quality of selected features. One variant of this new algorithm with look-ahead functionality is also tested to further confirm the good quality of the selected features. The new algorithm is easy to implement, and given a feature space of size F, it only uses O(F) more space than the original IFS algorithm.

Abstract

To evaluate the impact of implementing the Supporting Oral Feeding in Fragile Infants (SOFFI) program in a tertiary-level neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) on the oral feeding, growth, and length of stay outcomes of a heterogeneous population of medically fragile infants at discharge and feeding and growth outcomes postdischarge at 3 to 5 months postterm. Data related to feeding, growth, and length of stay from a convenience sample of 81 infants recruited pre-SOFFI training were compared with data for 75 infants recruited post-SOFFI training of the NICU staff. Subjects were not excluded on the basis of level of illness or medical diagnoses. To establish comparability of subject groups, infants were assigned scores using the Neonatal Medical Index. At 3 to 5 months postterm, semistructured parent phone interviews related to feeding and growth at home were conducted (n = 128). Post-SOFFI infants born at less than 37 weeks' gestation achieved full oral feedings in significantly fewer days than pre-SOFFI infants (P = .01). Time to achieve full oral feedings was not significantly different in post-SOFFI infants born at 37 or more weeks' gestation. Growth and length of stay were not significantly different at discharge. At follow-up, parents of post-SOFFI infants reported significantly fewer feeding problems overall (P = .01), less arching (P = .003), less vomiting (P = .006), and fewer infants seeing feeding specialists (P = .03). Results of the study support that NICU implementation of the SOFFI feeding program positively influences feeding outcomes before and following discharge.