Program transformations for information personalization

Personalization constitutes the mechanisms necessary to automatically customize information content, structure, and presentation to the end-user to reduce information overload. Unlike traditional approaches to personalization, the central theme of our approach is to model a website as a program and conduct website transformation for personalization by program transformation (e.g., partial evaluation, program slicing). The goal of this paper is study personalization through a program transformation lens, and develop a formal model, based on program transformations, for personalized interaction with hierarchical hypermedia. The specific research issues addressed involve identifying and developing program representations and transformations suitable for classes of hierarchical hypermedia, and providing supplemental interactions for improving the personalized experience. The primary form of personalization discussed is out-of-turn interaction—a technique which empowers a user navigating a hierarchical website to postpone clicking on any of the hyperlinks presented on the current page and, instead, communicate the label of a hyperlink nested deeper in the hierarchy. When the user supplies out-of-turn input we personalize the hierarchy to reflect the user's informational need. While viewing a website as a program and site transformation as program transformation is non-traditional, it offers a new way of thinking about personalized interaction, especially with hierarchical hypermedia. Our use of program transformations casts personalization in a formal setting and provides a systematic and implementation-neutral approach to designing systems. Moreover, this approach helped connect our work to human-computer dialog management and, in particular, mixed-initiative interaction. Putting personalized web interaction on a fundamentally different landscape gave birth to this new line of research. Relating concepts in the web domain (e.g., sites, interactions) to notions in the program-theoretic domain (e.g., programs, transformations) constitutes the creativity in this work.     

Rapid Prototyping of Adaptable User Interfaces

User interface adaptation has been proposed in recent years as a means to achieve personalized accessibility and usability of user interfaces. Related user interface architectures, as well as a variety of related development method and tools, have also been elaborated. Admittedly, however, despite the recognized validity of the approach, which has been proved in practice in a series of prototype systems, the wider adoption and uptake of user interface adaptation approaches are still limited. One of the identified obstacles is the complexity intrinsic in designing such interfaces and the need of radically revising the current user interface design practice to account for (a) the alternative designs required for adaptation, (b) the parameters involved in driving adaptations (i.e., selecting among alternatives at a given point during interaction), and (c) the logic of adaptation at runtime. This article proposes a twofold tool-based support strategy for user interface adaptation development, based on (a) an adaptation development toolkit and related widget library, which directly embeds lexical level adaptations into common interactive widgets, and (b) embedding such a library in a common integrated development environment, thus allowing designers to define and view alternative adaptations at design time and create adaptable user interfaces through traditional prototyping. The aforementioned approach has been implemented in the domain of adaptable applications for older users, producing tools that are currently in use in the development of a large suite of interactive applications in various domains. The approach presented in this article is claimed to be the first and so far unique supporting rapid prototyping of adaptable user interfaces, thus minimizing the divergence between typical development practices and user interface adaptation development.     

Utilizing contextual ontological user profiles for personalized recommendations

As users may have different needs in different situations and contexts, it is increasingly important to consider user context data when filtering information. In the field of web personalization and recommender systems, most of the studies have focused on the process of modelling user profiles and the personalization process in order to provide personalized services to the user, but not on contextualized services. Rather limited attention has been paid to investigate how to discover, model, exploit and integrate context information in personalization systems in a generic way. In this paper, we aim at providing a novel model to build, exploit and integrate context information with a web personalization system. A context-aware personalization system (CAPS) is developed which is able to model and build contextual and personalized ontological user profiles based on the user’s interests and context information. These profiles are then exploited in order to infer and provide contextual recommendations to users. The methods and system developed are evaluated through a user study which shows that considering context information in web personalization systems can provide more effective personalization services and offer better recommendations to users.     

Adapting domain ontology for personalized knowledge search and recommendation

This paper presents research on the development of a domain ontology adaptation system for personalized knowledge search and recommendation that adapts a suitable domain ontology according to the previous browsing and reading behavior of users (i.e., usage history log). An adaptive domain ontology can satisfy the future requirements of users and promote use value. In developing the system, a domain ontology adaptation model is first designed. Based on the designed adaptation model, a methodology for domain ontology adaptation is developed. Subsequently, a domain ontology adaptation system is implemented with an illustrative example of securities trading. Finally, a system evaluation for user satisfaction and a methodology evaluation are conducted to demonstrate that the developed methodology and system worked efficiently.     

一个个性化的信息搜集Agent的设计与实现

介绍了一个个性化的信息搜集Agent系统--DOLTRI-Agent(distanceandopenlearningtrainingresourceinformationagent)的设计与实现.DOLTRI-Agent系统是一个远程开放式学习(distanceandopenlearning,简称DOL)的教材信息搜集Agent.它基于多Agent体系结构,包含3个子Agent和其他3个组件.该系统具有主动搜集、维护、更新信息的功能,同时还具有个性化的特点,可不断学习用户知识,包括用户感兴趣的信息领域、用户的使用习惯等,并能运用这些知识来为用户提供个性化的信息服务和操作界面.     

Learning and inferencing in user ontology for personalized Semantic Web search

User modeling is aimed at capturing the users’ interests in a working domain, which forms the basis of providing personalized information services. In this paper, we present an ontology based user model, called user ontology, for providing personalized information service in the Semantic Web. Different from the existing approaches that only use concepts and taxonomic relations for user modeling, the proposed user ontology model utilizes concepts, taxonomic relations, and non-taxonomic relations in a given domain ontology to capture the users’ interests. As a customized view of the domain ontology, a user ontology provides a richer and more precise representation of the user’s interests in the target domain. Specifically, we present a set of statistical methods to learn a user ontology from a given domain ontology and a spreading activation procedure for inferencing in the user ontology. The proposed user ontology model with the spreading activation based inferencing procedure has been incorporated into a semantic search engine, called OntoSearch, to provide personalized document retrieval services. The experimental results, based on the ACM digital library and the Google Directory, support the efficacy of the user ontology approach to providing personalized information services.     

基于约束的旅游推荐系统的研究与设计

针对旅游领域的特点和传统推荐技术的应用局限性,提出一种基于约束的旅游推荐系统的设计方案,并对系统的推荐引擎进行了详细设计。系统通过可视化的知识获取工具高效地获取旅游领域知识、推荐规则、个性化规则等知识,使用交互＆个性化代理以会话式的交互方式逐步地启发用户的偏好和需要,利用多属性效用理论对推荐结果进行排序。相比传统的推荐方法,利用基于约束的推荐技术,能够为用户提供更加准确、个性化的旅游推荐服务。     

Do we trust the crowd or information system? Effects of personalization and bandwagon cues on users' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward a restaurant recommendation website

Visual interface cues on many websites can influence Internet users' psychology, especially their perceptions about the site as well as its content (Sundar, 2008). Specifically, presence of commonly used interface cues (e.g., personalization, bandwagon cues) can substantially influence users' attitudes and their behavioral intentions toward websites and their content. This study examined the effect of personalization feature and bandwagon cues (i.e., star ratings, reviews) in a restaurant recommendation website, measuring (a) to what extent users positively perceive and plan on revisiting or sharing the site, and (b) to what degree users favored the recommended restaurant and plan to visit them. A 2 (personalization feature: present vs. absent) × 2 (bandwagon cues: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment showed that personalization feature and bandwagon cues increased positive perceptions and their behavioral intentions toward both the website and the recommended restaurant. Moreover, results revealed that users' perceived relevance as well as perceived novelty mediated the effects of interface cues on their attitudinal and behavioral consequences. Further, the impact of the interface cues on user psychology significantly differed as a function of the other cues. Theoretical and practical implications for future research on the effect of interface cues on user psychology are discussed.     

A Bayesian network and analytic hierarchy process based personalized recommendations for tourist attractions over the Internet

Selecting tourist attractions to visit at a destination is a main stage in planning a trip. Although various online travel recommendation systems have been developed to support users in the task of travel planning during the last decade, few systems focus on recommending specific tourist attractions. In this paper, an intelligent system to provide personalized recommendations of tourist attractions in an unfamiliar city is presented. Through a tourism ontology, the system allows integration of heterogeneous online travel information. Based on Bayesian network technique and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, the system recommends tourist attractions to a user by taking into account the travel behavior both of the user and of other users. Spatial web services technology is embedded in the system to provide GIS functions. In addition, the system provides an interactive geographic interface for displaying the recommendation results as well as obtaining users’ feedback. The experiments show that the system can provide personalized recommendations on tourist attractions that satisfy the user.     

Medicine expert system dynamic Bayesian Network and ontology based

The paper proposes an application framework to be used for medicine assisted diagnosis based on ontology and Bayesian Network (DBNO). There are two goals: (1) to separate the domain knowledge from the probabilistic information and (2) to create an intuitive user interface. The framework architecture has three layers: knowledge, uncertainty model and user interface. The contributions of the domain experts are decoupled, the ontology builder will create the domain concepts and relationships focusing on the domain knowledge only. The uncertainty model is Bayesian Network and the probabilities of the variables states are stored in a profile repository. The diagnostician will use the user interface feeded with the domain ontology and one uncertainty profile. The application was tested on a sample medicine model for the diagnose of heart disease.     

Interactive multi-user video retrieval systems

In this paper we present two interactive multi-user systems for video search and browsing. The first is composed by web applications which allows multiuser interaction in a distributed environment; such applications are based on the Rich Internet Application paradigm, designed to obtain the levels of responsiveness and interactivity typical of a desktop application. The second system implements a multi-user collaborative application within a single location, exploiting multi-touch devices. Both systems use the same backend, based on a service oriented architecture (SOA) that provides services for automatic and manual annotation, and an ontology-based video search and browsing engine. Ontology-based browsing let users to inspect the content of video collections; user queries are expanded through ontology reasoning. User-centered field trials of the systems, conducted to assess the user experience and satisfaction, have shown that the approach followed to design these interfaces is extremely appreciated by professional archivists and people working on multimedia.     

Contributions of Dichotomic View of plasticity to seamlessly embed accessibility and adaptivity support in user interfaces

Recent legal changes have increased the need for developing accessible user interfaces in computer-based systems. In this sense, previously existing user interfaces are intended to be modified and new user interfaces are intended to be designed taking accessibility guidelines into account. Typically, model-based approaches have been used when developing accessible user interfaces or redefining existing ones. But the use of static models leads to the development of not dynamically adaptable user interfaces. Dynamic adaptation in accessible user interfaces is important due to the fact that interaction difficulties on people with disabilities may change through use. In this paper, we present some contributions that can be obtained from the application of the Dichotomic View of plasticity in the personalization of user interfaces. With the double perspective defined in this approach, it is intended to go further from a mere adaptation to certain user stereotypes, offering also a dynamic support to real limitations or difficulties users can encounter during the use of the UI. This goal is achieved analyzing user logs by an inference engine that dynamically infers modifications in the user interface to adjust it to varying user needs. A case study is presented in order to show how the guidelines and software support defined in the Dichotomic View of plasticity can be applied to develop a component for a particular system aimed at performing dynamic user interface adaptations with accessibility purposes. This approach includes some innovations that make it different from conventional adaptable mechanisms applied to accessibility in some important aspects.     

Personalization on a peer-to-peer television system

We introduce personalization on Tribler, a peer-to-peer (P2P) television system. Personalization allows users to browse programs much more efficiently according to their taste. It also enables to build social networks that can improve the performance of current P2P systems considerably, by increasing content availability, trust and the realization of proper incentives to exchange content. This paper presents a novel scheme, called BuddyCast, that builds such a social network for a user by exchanging user interest profiles using exploitation and exploration principles. Additionally, we show how the interest of a user in TV programs can be predicted from the zapping behavior by the introduced user-item relevance models, thereby avoiding the explicit rating of TV programs. Further, we present how the social network of a user can be used to realize a truly distributed recommendation of TV programs. Finally, we demonstrate a novel user interface for the personalized peer-to-peer television system that encompasses a personalized tag-based navigation to browse the available distributed content. The user interface also visualizes the social network of a user, thereby increasing community feeling which increases trust amongst users and within available content and creates incentives of to exchange content within the community.     

SX/Tools - An Open Design Environment for Adaptable Multimedia User Interfaces

In this paper a brief review of user interface management systems (UIMSs) and their advantages is given. Shortcomings of current UIMSs and open requirements imposed by industrial application areas are outlined. Among the most important requirements are uniform design mechanisms independent of interaction media, techniques, and styles as well as a straight forward end-user adaptability of user interfaces. A new approach to interactive interface construction, called “direct composition”, is introduced. In this approach all interface objects contain the means for their own modification and design and therefore offer consistent interaction techniques for both the construction and usage of user interfaces. Moreover, end-user adaptability is an inherent feature of direct composition interfaces. The user interface design environment SX/Tools is described to exemplify specific properties of user interface management systems following the principle of direct composition. The impacts of direct composition on user interface design include a uniform interface development process covering tool development, interface development, and “on-usage” interface adaptation. It is argued that the direct composition approach can overcome many of the problems with traditional UIMSs.     

Evaluating the Impact of User Characteristics and Different Layouts on an Interactive Visualization for Decision Making

There is increasing evidence that user characteristics can have a significant impact on visualization effectiveness, suggesting that visualizations could be designed to better fit each user's specific needs. Most studies to date, however, have looked at static visualizations. Studies considering interactive visualizations have only looked at a limited number of user characteristics, and consider either low‐level tasks (e.g., value retrieval), or high‐level tasks (in particular: discovery), but not both. This paper contributes to this line of work by looking at the impact of a large set of user characteristics on user performance with interactive visualizations, for both low and high‐level tasks. We focus on interactive visualizations that support decision making, exemplified by a visualization known as Value Charts. We include in the study two versions of ValueCharts that differ in terms of layout, to ascertain whether layout mediates the impact of individual differences and could be considered as a form of personalization. Our key findings are that (i) performance with low and high‐level tasks is affected by different user characteristics, and (ii) users with low visual working memory perform better with a horizontal layout. We discuss how these findings can inform the provision of personalized support to visualization processing.     

基于领域本体的跨系统个性化服务用户模型

目前大多数个性化服务系统采用关键词或关键词向量空间模型表示用户个人偏好,该方法严重制约了用户模型在不同系统间的共享和重用。针对上述问题,提出一种基于领域本体的用户模型,给出其形式化描述,通过引入个性化兴趣度实现用户个人偏好的量化,介绍该模型在群体用户建模中的应用过程。实验表明,该用户模型能准确反映用户兴趣且更新能力和可扩展性较强。     

User Modeling for Personalized City Tours

Several current support systems for travel and tourism are aimed at providing information in a personalized manner, taking users' interests and preferences into account. In this vein, personalized systems observe users' behavior and, based thereon, make generalizations and predictions about them. This article describes a user modeling server that offers services to personalized systems with regard to the analysis of user actions, the representation of assumptions about the user, and the inference of additional assumptions based on domain knowledge and characteristics of similar users. The system is open and compliant with major standards, allowing it to be easily accessed by clients that need personalization services.     

支持Internet上个性化信息重组与发布的Web挖掘关键技术的研究

Internet上个性化信息的重组与发布是Web个性化技术的一个重要组成部分,这一领域目前存在的主要问题是:并非没有信息重组和发布的工具,而是缺乏能够使这类工具高效工作的支持技术。本文提出一种将流数据处理技术引入Web点击流、IP地址流及页面文本流挖掘和分析过程,研究基于Web数据流挖掘的用户行为和需求分析方法;将本体和领域知识引入Web内容挖掘过程,研究领域知识指导下的Web内容挖掘方法;将基于Web数据流挖掘的用户行为和需求分析与领域知识指导下的Web内容挖掘相结合,研究Internet上Web信息模式和Web用户模型及其相互关系的建立;将上述研究成果应用于实际,以期达到高效地支持Internet上满足用户个性化要求的信息重组与发布的目的。     

MAPIS,a multi-agent system for information personalization

In the domain of multi-user and agent-oriented information systems, personalized information systems aim to give specific and customized responses to individual user requests. In addition to the ability to analyze user needs and to retrieve, understand and act on distributed data that is offered by any agent-oriented system, multi-agent systems also offer interesting possibilities for interaction, particularly with regard to information sharing and task coordination. Our approach exploits these interactive possibilities in order to make the system capable of personalizing information. In addition, reusable models at both the social and individual levels were chosen for this approach in order to facilitate subsequent information system design. With these two ideas in mind, several models of agent interaction (social) and the internal activity cycles (individual) have been proposed with the aim of creating a multi-agent system for information personalization.