Peeking behind the screen: the unsuspected power of the standard Turing Test

No computer that had not experienced the world as we humans had could pass a rigorously administered standard Turing Test. This paper will show that the use of ‘subcognitive’ questions allows the standard Turing Test to indirectly probe the human subcognitive associative concept network built up over a lifetime of experience with the world. Not only can this probing reveal differences in cognitive abilities, but crucially, even differences in physical aspects of the candidates can be detected. Consequently, it is unnecessary to propose even harder versions of the Test in which all physical and behavioural aspects of the two candidates had to be indistinguishable before allowing the machine to pass the Test. Any machine that passed the ‘simpler’ symbols-in symbols-out test as originally proposed by Turing would be intelligent. The problem is that, even in its original form, the Turing Test is already too hard and too anthropocentric for any machine that was not a physical, social and behavioural carbon copy of ourselves to actually pass it. Consequently, the Turing Test, even in its standard version, is not a reasonable test for general machine intelligence. There is no need for an even stronger version of the Test.     

基于答案及其上下文信息的问题生成模型

基于文本的问题生成是从给定的句子或段落中生成相关问题。目前,主要采用序列到序列的神经网络模型来研究包含答案的句子生成问题,然而这些方法存在以下问题: ①生成的疑问词与答案类型不匹配; ②问题与答案的相关性不强。该文提出一个基于答案及其上下文信息的问题生成模型。该模型首先根据答案与上下文信息的关系确定与答案类型匹配的疑问词;然后利用答案及其上下文信息确定问题相关词,使问题尽可能使用原文中的词;最后结合原句作为输入来生成问题。相关实验表明,该文提出的模型性能明显优于基线系统。     

Effective analytic functions

One approach for computations with special functions in computer algebra is the systematic use of analytic functions whenever possible. This naturally leads to problems of how to answer questions about analytic functions in a fully effective way. Such questions comprise the determination of the radius of convergence or the evaluation of the analytic continuation of the function at the endpoint of a broken line path. In this paper, we propose a first definition for the notion of an effective analytic function and we show how to effectively solve several types of differential equations in this context. We will limit ourselves to functions in one variable.     

Assessing word-processing skills by event stream analysis

This paper derives the algorithms required to process the stream of textual events collected from a candidate's interaction with a word processor to produce an assessment of their word-processing skills. The information that can be extracted from the textual event stream is compared to that which can be deduced from a comparison of the candidate's submitted answer with the model answer(s) generated by the examiner. For many examinations, document comparison is simpler and more efficient than event stream analysis but it is not always possible to fully analyse errors from document comparison; hence a mixture of document comparison and event stream analysis is desirable for computer-based word-processing assessment.     

A Review of “Research On Main Street: Using The Web to Find Local Business and Market Information. Phelps,Marcy.”

Slam the Boards (STB) is a grassroots activity in which librarians visit social Q&;A sites on the tenth of each month and answer as many questions as possible. Through this activity, librarians hope to represent librarianship at a new venue; encounter users beyond the library and provide well-sourced, dependable answers to people's questions; and ultimately increase the public's awareness of libraries. Semistructured interviews were conducted with participating librarians, examining their motivation, experience, and reflection. Findings of the study can help develop an in-depth understanding of STB and yield insights on how to efficiently and effectively promote library resources and services beyond the library.     

The impact of visual design and response formats on data quality in a web survey of MOOC students

The objective of this paper is to gain more evidence regarding how the design of the rating scales and open-ended questions influence data quality in Web surveys of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) students. We present the results of four full-factorial randomized experiments that investigate the impact of the following factors: 1) order of response options; 2) user interface for rating questions 3) layout of question's options; and 4) size of answer boxes in open-ended questions. We found that responses to scalar questions with ascending (from negative to positive) or descending (from positive to negative) order of response options do not differ substantially. The use of the radio button format allows a reduction in the percentage of respondents who choose the “Don't know” option and makes responding to questions less challenging in comparison with slider and text box interfaces. There are no significant differences in the answers of respondents who completed questionnaires with a vertical or horizontal orientation of the questions' options. In addition, respondents who answer the questions with larger answer boxes are more likely to write longer comments.     

软件问答社区的问题删除预测方法

Stack Overflow是最受欢迎的软件问答社区之一, 用户可以在该网站发布问题并得到其他用户的回答. 为了保证问题质量, 网站需要尽快发现并删除低质量或者不符合社区主题的问题. 当前, Stack Overflow主要采用人工检查的方式发现需要被删除的问题. 然而这种方式往往不能保证问题被及时发现、删除, 而且加...     

Combination retrieval for creating knowledge from sparse document-collection

With the variety of human life, people are interested in various matters for each one's unique reason, for which a machine maybe a better counselor than a human. This paper proposes to help user create novel knowledge by combining multiple existing documents, even if the document-collection is sparse, i.e. if a query in the domain has no corresponding answer in the collection. This novel knowledge realizes an answer to a user's unique question, which cannot be answered by a single recorded document. In the Combination Retriever implemented here, cost-based abduction is employed for selecting and combining appropriate documents for making a readable and context-reflecting answer. Empirically, Combination Retriever obtained satisfactory answers to user's unique questions.     

A language for inquiring about the run-time behaviour of programs

This paper describes a language for studying the behaviour of programs, based upon the data collected while these programs are executed by a computer. Besides being a useful tool in debugging, the language is also valuable in the experimental evaluation of the complexity of algorithms, in studying the interdependence of conditionals in a program and in determining the feasibility of transporting programs from one machine to another. The program one wishes to analyse is written in an Algol 60-like language; when the program is executed it automatically stores, in a data base, the information needed to answer general questions about computational events which occurred during execution. This information consists (basically) of the list of labels passed while the program is being executed, and the current values of the variables. Since the list of labels is describable by regular expressions, these expressions can also be used to identify specific subparts of the list and therefore allow access to the values of the variables. This constitutes the basis for the design of the inquiry language. The user's questions are automatically answered by a processor which inspects the previously generated data base. The paper also presents examples of the use of the language and describes the implementation of its processor.     

Social networks and mathematical models: A research commentary on “Critical Mass and Willingness to Pay for Social Networks” by J. Christopher Westland

This brief research commentary on Westland’s (2010) article in this issue of Electronic Commerce Research and Applications is intended to add two cautionary notes. He attempts to answer two questions: What is critical mass? And how one can manage a network’s growth to reach that mass? He proposes a model for social networks, and shows how the model might possibly be managed. What needs to be remembered is that models are always imperfect. And even when they do describe well the natural behavior of some system, they may not fit as well, once some external influence begins affecting that system. Hence Westland’s contribution should be regarded as a definite step forward, but not necessarily the definitive answer to either of the questions it attempts to solve.     

Living in real time, side A (What is the Info Age?)

What is the Information Age? Everyone uses the term, but nobody defines it. In this paper, I formulate the principles of the Information Age and use the computer industry as proof of its existence. I answer some burning questions: What is the Information Age, how does it differ from the Machine Age, where is it leading, and what does it have to do with computers? I examine what it means to live and prosper in a constantly changing world, define the principles of an Information Age, and examine the Computer Age in the context of business warfare. After all, the computer industry is the best example of a civilization on speed     

虚拟现实(VR)场景的贴图表现艺术探微

虚拟现实(VR)互动展示系统是技术与艺术的结合体,是在计算机技术基础上的艺术性再造;基于技术,融入艺术,是VR系统的主要特征。文章从贴图表现艺术作为VR系统技术与艺术之间的纽带,表现VR场景的艺术氛围这个角度进行探索研究。     

Ethics and information technology use: a factor analysis of attitudes to computer use

Abstract. In 1986 Richard O. Mason identified privacy, accuracy, property and access as four ethical issues for the information age. The research reported here sought to answer the questions: are these social issues empirically verifiable constructs? Second, what consensus exists on the factors? A field survey of 79 business professionals and students identified 12 factors which were grouped into five clusters: ownership, access, motivation, responsibility and privacy. These constructs identify additional dimensions and complexity to extend Mason's definition of key ethical issues. The importance of separating the computer user who experiences the ethical dilemma from the stakeholder(s) who deal with the consequences of the dilemma is identified. This study also demonstrates some consensus within the survey items. Consensus exists that it is unethical to profit from non-job, computer-related acts. Consensus also exists that personal use of company-owned information technology resources is acceptable. The other items show little consensus, identifying areas of necessary discussion within the computing professions to determine ethically consistent and appropriate computer uses.     

Exploiting eye–hand coordination to detect grasping movements

Human beings are very skillful at reaching for and grasping objects under multiple conditions, even when faced with an object's wide variety of positions, locations, structures and orientations. This natural ability, controlled by the human brain, is called eye–hand coordination. To understand this behavior it is necessary to study both eye and hand movements simultaneously. This paper proposes a novel approach to detect grasping movements by means of computer vision techniques. This solution fuses two viewpoints, one viewpoint which is obtained from an eye-tracker capturing the user's perspective and a second viewpoint which is captured by a wearable camera attached to a user's wrist. Utilizing information from these two viewpoints it is possible to characterize multiple hand movements in conjunction with eye-gaze movements through a Hidden–Markov Model framework. This paper shows that combining these two sources makes it possible to detect hand gestures using only the objects contained in the scene even without markers on the surface of the objects. In addition, it is possible to detect which is the desired object before the user can actually grasp said object.     

Intelligent adaptive assistance and its automatic generation

Manuals and interactive help are tedious to provide, difficult to maintain, and difficult to ensure that they remain correct, even for simple systems. The result is a loss in product quality, felt particularly by users and designers committed to long-term product development.The paper shows that it is possible to systematically put a system specification and its documentation into exact correspondence. It follows that much previously manual work can be done automatically — and with considerable advantages, including guaranteed correctness and completeness, as well as supporting powerful new features such as intelligent adaptive assistance. This paper shows how interactive assistance can be provided to answer ‘how to?’, ‘why not?’ and other questions.     

通用选择题考试系统

对各学科的选择题采用计算机生成试题，在计算机上进行考试，由计算机实现阅卷和数据处理的无纸化考试，用动态链接库（DLL）对试题进行加密和解密，增强了可靠性和灵活性，采用OLE自动化技术将阅卷结果存入Excel工作表作进一步数据分析。     

Intelligent agents and liability: is it a doctrinal problem or merely a problem of explanation?

The question of liability in the case of using intelligent agents is far from simple, and cannot sufficiently be answered by deeming the human user as being automatically responsible for all actions and mistakes of his agent. Therefore, this paper is specifically concerned with the significant difficulties which might arise in this regard especially if the technology behind software agents evolves, or is commonly used on a larger scale. Furthermore, this paper contemplates whether or not it is possible to share the responsibility with these agents and what are the main objections surrounding the assumption of considering such agents as responsible entities. This paper, however, is not intended to provide the final answer to all questions and challenges in this regard, but to identify the main components, and provide some perspectives on how to deal with such issue.     

SIMULATION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUAL INTERACTIONAL PATTERNS

The questions of how and why individuals develop normal or abnormal interpersonal patterns have received nonconsistent answers in the behavioral sciences, perhaps because they were too much concerned with the semantics and the syntax aspects of the communication process that mediates human interaction. This paper demonstrates that a pragmatic approach is necessary and sufficient to answer the above questions. The information processing aspect of the “single bit of information exchange” model (P. De Giacomo and A. Silvestri, 1979) is developed to create a computer simulation procedure. Using both clinical data and normal population measurements of KALTEST (O. G. Pereira and C. P. Ferreira, 1984) as the basic criteria, it is found that the development of a stable normal pattern of interaction depends on the ability to share proposals with the other significant person in the environment and that the development of an abnormal pattern depends on refusal to share coupled with a tendency to escape from the ring of the interaction.     

Effects of “gender” of the computer on informational social influence: the moderating role of task type

The present experiment examined if and how “gender” of the computer, manifested in character representation, would affect its informational influence on individuals’ decisions on masculine (sports) or feminine (fashion) topics. In a 2 (participant's gender) ×2 (character gender) ×2 (nature of topic: masculine vs. feminine) between-subjects experiment, participants played a trivia quiz game with the computer. During the game, they were given a chance to change their initial answer after seeing the computer's answer, which they knew was not necessarily correct. Results supported the match-up hypothesis such that while the male computer elicited greater conformity on the masculine topic than on the feminine topic, the opposite was true for the female counterpart. In addition, men were less likely to yield to the computer's suggestion than women on the masculine topic whereas women were less likely to succumb to the computer's influence on the feminine topic. These findings are discussed in terms of the robustness of gender-stereotyping in human–computer interaction and the implications for Computers Are Social Actors paradigm.     

Work analysis in French language ergonomics: origins and current research trends

This paper is not so much a synthesis as a reflection on work analysis in French language ergonomics. It is structured around two questions. First, how is francophone analysis positioned in relation to other developments which themselves have attempted to describe work—like anglophone taxonomy? Second, how has francophone analysis evolved? The author suggests that the evolution reveals a shift. Gradually, over the years, questions of meaning and analysis have taken on a greater importance. This shift appears clearly, in work analysis and verbalization, two topics which are discussed in the paper.