A task-performance evaluation of referring expressions in situated collaborative task dialogues

Appropriate evaluation of referring expressions is critical for the design of systems that can effectively collaborate with humans. A widely used method is to simply evaluate the degree to which an algorithm can reproduce the same expressions as those in previously collected corpora. Several researchers, however, have noted the need of a task-performance evaluation measuring the effectiveness of a referring expression in the achievement of a given task goal. This is particularly important in collaborative situated dialogues. Using referring expressions used by six pairs of Japanese speakers collaboratively solving Tangram puzzles, we conducted a task-performance evaluation of referring expressions with 36 human evaluators. Particularly we focused on the evaluation of demonstrative pronouns generated by a machine learning-based algorithm. Comparing the results of this task-performance evaluation with the results of a previously conducted corpus-matching evaluation (Spanger et al. in Lang Resour Eval, 2010b), we confirmed the limitation of a corpus-matching evaluation and discuss the need for a task-performance evaluation.     

Model for assigning roles automatically in egovernment virtual organizations

When working in conjunction with multiagent systems, virtual organizations attempt to simulate the functions and interactions of entities in different environments. Recent studies have addressed the problem of assigning roles to agents that form part of the organization, and incorporating new agents to carry out certain tasks. However, these studies are limited to defining the norms and rules that determine the behavior of the organization. The present study proposes a virtual organization model for egovernment environments to assign resources and minimize the required personnel by forecasting workloads. To this end, a neural network, queuing theory, and CBR are used to obtain an efficient distribution. Queuing theory can establish the number of agents with a specific role that are necessary to maximize profits, while the network distributes roles among agents according to their respective efficiency. The final part of the paper is focused on validating the plan developed inside a case study centered on e-government in order to obtain empirical results.     

An examination of interactions in a three-dimensional virtual world

Three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds hold the users' attention by providing rich interaction in an environment similar to the real world. User engagement duration is known to increase in environments with intense interaction. However, information in the literature about whether gender, experience, or spatial ability affects interaction in these environments is limited. In this study, these three factors are compared to users' depth of interaction in a 3D virtual world. In addition, the relationships between engagement duration, spatial ability, and depth of interaction are examined to investigate whether the first two factors can predict the third. Findings showed that users' depth of interaction was not influenced by gender, but experience and spatial ability did affect interaction. A strong relationship was determined between depth of interaction and engagement duration, and a moderate relationship was found between depth of interaction and spatial ability. Findings indicated that when designing 3D environments, it is important to consider which kinds of tasks provide more interaction and to what extent spatial abilities affect interaction, as well as to prepare activities that will increase engagement duration and to devise strategies to enhance depth of interaction.     

The immersive impact of meta-media in a virtual world

With the increasing importance of virtual settings, we observe a complexification of the media used by members of the virtual communities. Using as the model the Star Wars Role-Play community of the virtual environment of Second Life, and a related news-styled blog, the “Galactic News Network”, we analysed here the impact of this media complexification on immersion process. Specifically, we analysed how meta-media can act on virtual community behavior, and on the immersive potential of the virtual world. We combined “out-of-world” analysis of the blog, and “in-world” qualitative and quantitative evaluation of meta-media-related social activities. Our results demonstrate that meta-media strongly contribute to reinforce the immersive potential of the virtual setting via several mechanisms: by increasing three parameters of the virtual world (cohesion, coherence, and commitment), by increasing the social density of the virtual community, and by acting on the perceived time factor. The combined “in-world” and “out-of-world” action of the meta-media increases the possibilities of inter-individual connections. The combination of 2D asynchronous media and 3D instantaneous virtual settings in a homogeneous and coherent immersive environment reinforces the immersive potential of the virtual world. Thus, meta-media seem to be a factor of long-term stabilization of social structures in virtual environments.     

Learning from technical documents: the role of intermodal referring expressions

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the impact of two types of intermodal referring expressions on efficiency of instructions for use. BACKGROUND: User manuals for software or technical devices such as a video recording system frequently combine verbal instructions and illustrations. Much research has shown that the presence of an illustration has a beneficial effect on learning. The present study focuses on a factor that modulates this beneficial effect. The combination of text and an illustration can be effective only if the user integrates the information coming from these two media. This integration depends largely on the intermodal referential expressions, the function of which is to mark explicitly the relations between the text and the illustration. METHOD: In an experiment (N = 104), we compared the effectiveness of two intermodal referring expressions often used in procedural texts: indexes (numbers introduced in the illustrations and in the instructions to establish cross-references) and icons (visual representations of the components of the device, which are inserted in the verbal instructions). RESULTS: The icons condition led to the most efficient use of the device. CONCLUSION: This experiment shows that learning from multimedia documents depends on the possibility of effectively connecting the verbal instructions to the illustration. APPLICATION: Taking into account the ergonomic properties of the cross-media referring expressions should allow text designers to improve the effectiveness of technical documents.     

The multimodal world of medical monitoring displays

A vision of the future of intraoperative monitoring for anesthesia is presented-a multimodal world based on advanced sensing capabilities. I explore progress towards this vision, outlining the general nature of the anesthetist's monitoring task and the dangers of attentional capture. Research in attention indicates different kinds of attentional control, such as endogenous and exogenous orienting, which are critical to how awareness of patient state is maintained, but which may work differently across different modalities. Four kinds of medical monitoring displays are surveyed: (1) integrated visual displays, (2) head-mounted displays, (3) advanced auditory displays and (4) auditory alarms. Achievements and challenges in each area are outlined. In future research, we should focus more clearly on identifying anesthetists' information needs and we should develop models of attention in different modalities and across different modalities that are more capable of guiding design.     

vCOM: Electronic commerce in a collaborative virtual world

Existing e-commerce applications on the web provide the users a relatively simple, browser-based interface to access available products. Customers are not provided with the same shopping experience as they would in an actual store or mall. This experience, however, can be achieved by the creation of a virtual shopping mall environment, simulating most of the actual shopping user interactions. The virtual mall brings together the services and products of various vendors. Users can navigate through the virtual shopping malls, adding items of interest into a virtual shopping cart, and perform searches assisted by ‘intelligent agents’. A Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) can realize a sophisticated virtual shopping application. In such a CVE, a large number of potential users may interact with each other. In this paper, vCOM, a VRML and Java3D-based prototype is presented, which permits users to navigate around virtual e-commerce worlds and perform collaborative shopping and intelligent searches with the assistance of software agents, in order to find the products and services of interest to them. They can then negotiate with sales agents to bargain for the best possible price and then make a secure buying transaction. The virtual mall prototype also allows the user to communicate with an ‘intelligent shopping assistant’ using simple voice commands. This assistant interacts with the shopper using voice synthesis and helps him/her use the interface to efficiently navigate in the mall. Real-time interactions between the entities in this shared environment are implemented over the High Level Architecture (HLA), an IEEE standard for distributed simulations and modeling. The paper focuses on user interface design, collaborative e-commerce through HLA and multi-agent architecture.     

Synchronized world embedding in virtual environments

We introduce a novel distributed approach that lets users copy a given CVE section and keep it consistent with all its other copies and its original CVE area. Although 3D world modeling tools such as Alias' Maya and Discreet's 3DS Max already use object embedding, our method is the first to introduce it in a functioning CVE system. We also expand the traditional object-embedding concept by introducing a mutual synchronization function between the source and destination worlds. The mutual synchronization scheme propagates events $such as changes in an object's color, shape, or position - to other copies of a world. This synchronized world embedding thus offers a new way to expand worlds. Our method is built on existing CVE functionality, which lets us deploy it without significantly interfering with existing CVE designs. We've also altered the method so that it's usable when consistency needs are more relaxed.     

On the effect of test-suite reduction on automatically generated model-based tests

Model checking techniques can be successfully employed as a test-case generation technique to generate tests from formal models. The number of tests-cases produced, however, is typically large for complex coverage criteria such as MC/DC. Test-suite reduction can provide us with a smaller set of test-cases that preserve the original coverage—often a dramatically smaller set. Nevertheless, one potential drawback with test-suite reduction is that this might affect the quality of the test-suite in terms of fault finding. Previous empirical studies provide conflicting evidence on this issue. To further investigate the problem and determine its effect when testing implementations derived from formal models of software we performed an experiment using a large case example of a Flight Guidance System, generated reduced test-suites for a variety of structural coverage criteria while preserving coverage, and recorded their fault finding effectiveness. Our results indicate that the size of the specification based test-suites can be dramatically reduced and that the fault detection of the reduced test-suites is adversely affected. In this report we describe our experiment, analyze the results, and discuss the implications for testing based on formal specifications. This work has been partially supported by NASA grant NAG-1-224 and NASA contract NCC-01001. We also want to thank the McKnight Foundation for their generous support over the years.

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Potential of multimodal and multiuser interaction with virtual holography

Virtual holography is a disruptive technology that can inspire innovations in variety of fields through blending the physical world with sensory-rich virtual world. The technology enables users to naturally and intuitively manipulate objects and navigate in 3D space. The zSpace virtual holography platform is described. The platform provides a 3D display and head-tracking technology that transforms PCs into virtual-holographic computing facility using a stereoscopic user interface with an interactive stylus. The major components of the platform and its potential benefits, along with some of the current applications are briefly described.The use of the zSpace platform to explore and manipulate a number of space system models is outlined. The models considered include Titan Saturn system, a joint NASA/ESA mission; Mars Science Lab concept; James Webb Telescope; and a Lunar Lander concept. In each of the applications considered, the platform is enhanced by using multimodal interactions, and providing support for multiuser collaboration. The multimodal interactions, which enable more engaging, enhanced accessibility, are achieved by fusing information from a set of stylus input, 3D gestures, and neural input. Simultaneous and collaborative multiuser interactions are described, which support both local and distributed teams, using variety of displays.Emerging and future enhancements of the zSpace platform are outlined, along with novel future applications.     

Cost optimization in persistent virtual world design

Virtual world has the potential to become a future global electronic market, integrating many isolated markets in many areas. To achieve this goal, future virtual world is required to be persistent, which means that a virtual world together with its accumulated content shall exist forever regardless of the dynamic changes of its virtual world users and virtual world owners. This paper addresses the content-level persistence issue by proposing a persistence framework which consists of three elements: existence, availability, and sufficiency. Following the framework, a decentralized redundancy model is then proposed, which is immune from the possible collapse of virtual world. The key problem in the model is the selection of a redundancy level, which is based on cost optimization. Furthermore, the replica failure timeout mechanism is introduced to improve the model. The simulation results show that the redundancy model helps improve content availability and minimizes cost.     

Automatic multimodal assessment of soft skills in social interactions: a review

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Automatic assessment of soft skills is an interesting problem in social computing. Soft skills are essential to any individual for personal and career...     

A loop acceleration technique to speed up verification of automatically generated plans

The CIRCA planning system automatically creates reactive plans and uses formal verification techniques to prove that those plans will preserve system safety. CIRCA’s timed automata verification system is highly efficient, yet can display pathologically bad behavior when reasoning about reaction loops, a particular form of interacting cycles of states. In this paper, we describe a loop acceleration technique that recognizes these state-space structures during the verification process and bypasses the process of expanding an arbitrarily large cycle of states, effectively compressing loops of arbitrary size into a compact, finite set of states. The resulting performance improvement can be very dramatic: in domains where tight loops of short-duration transitions interact with long-duration transitions, our new loop acceleration methods can reduce verification time (and hence planning time) from hours to below a second.     

Simulink环境下的UART串口行为建模及其HDL代码自动生成

通用非同步收发传输器UART是一种通用串行数据总线,双向通信,可以实现全双工传输和接收,用于异步通信.在Simulink环境下,用STATEFLOW对其进行建模,可以将其原理直接转化成模型,摆脱了传统方式下直接手写代码的弊端,而且可以自动生成HDL代码,为FPGA的设计、开发开辟了新的途径.