User Interfaces and Help Systems: From Helplessness to Intelligent Assistance

Despite a large body of multidisciplinary research on helpful and user-orientedinterface design, help facilities found in most commercial software are so ill-conceived thatthey are often unhelpful. From a wide spectrum of disciplines and software tools, we presentan extensive review of related work, identifying their limitations as well as their most prom-isingaspects. Using this material, we attempt to recapitulate the necessary requirements foruseful help systems.     

The intelligent help system COMFOHELP

The paper is concerned with the question of whether and under what conditions active help systems with plan recognition components that have been developed in the environment of artificial intelligence research are able to prove their value in the real context of commercial application programs. The question is investigated using the development of the COMFOHELP intelligent help system as an example. COMFOHELP supports the COMFOTEX graphical text processing program and has been developed by the Linguistic Information Science Group at the University of Regensburg since 1988. The system recognizes erroneous and suboptimal plans pursued by the user by analyzing the dialog history and comparing them with the correct plan for achieving the user's goal.Section 2 discusses the research situation and elaborates on those problems which up to now prevented research concepts for plan recognition and intelligent help systems from being practically applied. Testing error situations empirically is a first prerequisite since potential erroneous plans can only be established in real-world tests. The second prerequisite is a special system architecture which counteracts the problem of ambiguities in plan recognition. Section 3 introduces a first still restricted prototype version of COMFOHELP whose efficiency was verified in a statistical hypothesis test. The users performing their text processing tasks with the support of COMFOHELP came off significantly better than members of a reference group working without the intelligent help. Section 4 shows that the proposed COMFOHELP system architecture is reconfirmed by the results of extensive empirical investigations (with more than 100 users) of erroneous plans when using a more complex version of COMFOTEX. The architecture still proves to be worthwhile even when functionality is increased by a factor of three to four.     

An Intelligent Human-Computer Interface for Provision of On-Line Help

Some user interfaces, such as that of Unix, aredifficult for novices to use, and this paper suggestsa possible solution to such problems. The results ofa study of Unix users enabled the development of ataxonomy of error types so that users' errors can beclassified. This information is encapsulated asproduction rules within a knowledge base and forms thebasis for the design and development of an intelligentinterface to Unix. The prototype makes inferencesabout users' mental models and uses these to selectappropriate tutorial advice. Performance of users ofthe prototype intelligent interface was compared withthat of users of the usual Unix interface. Theprototype users were found to make fewer errors,exhibit fewer misconceptions and take less time tocomplete a standard set of tasks.     

基于智能规划的计划识别模型

为了解决战场态势评估问题,提出了一个基于智能规划的军事计划识别模型,给出了基于一阶谓词逻辑的计划识别模型描述方法,论述了基于该模型的计划假设识别方法。模型可以根据世界模型和作战目标的要求实时生成新的计划,来满足当前计划识别的需要,克服了Kautz计划识别框架的不足。     

一种新型的仿人智能控制器的设计方法

本文在文献[1,2]提出的仿人智能控制理论的基础之上,探索了设计其仿人智能控制器的 基本思想和方法,并以伺服控制为例阐明了设计的步骤及其仿真实验结果.     

Abductive Theorem Proving for Analyzing Student Explanations to Guide Feedback in Intelligent Tutoring Systems

The Why2-Atlas tutoring system presents students with qualitative physics questions and encourages them to explain their answers through natural language. Although there are inexpensive techniques for analyzing explanations, we claim that better understanding is necessary for use within tutoring systems. In this paper we motivate and describe how the system creates and uses a deeper proof-based representation of student essays in order to provide students with substantive feedback on their explanations. We describe in detail the abductive reasoner, Tacitus-lite+, that we use within the tutoring system. We also discuss evaluation results for an early version of the Why2-Atlas system and a subsequent evaluation of the theorem-proving module. We conclude with the discussion of work in progress and additional future work for deriving more benefits from a proof-based approach for tutoring applications.     

基于遗传算法的水产智能系统推理机的研制

为了实现对虾产业高产高效技术的资源共享,以及养殖的科学管理及病虫害诊断与防治智能化,构建了基于ASP．NET的对虾产业高产高效技术服务系统,详细讨论了系统功能模块、逻辑体系结构及实现的关键技术。并给出了基于遗传算法的推理机和基于OWC（Office Web Components）的水产品产量统计的关键代码,还对系统的特点和创新点作了总结。系统已在广东沿海地区投入使用,实践证明该系统不仅操作简单、安全可靠,还具有良好的扩展性。     

I-Quiz: An Intelligent Assessment Tool for Non-Verbal Behaviour Detection

Electronic learning (e-learning) has become one of the widely used modes of pedagogy in higher education today due to the convenience and flexibility offered in comparison to traditional learning activities. Advancements in Information and Communication Technology have eased learner connectivity online and enabled access to an extensive range of learning materials on the World Wide Web. Post covid-19 pandemic, online learning has become the most essential and inevitable medium of learning in primary, secondary and higher education. In recent times, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have transformed the current education strategy by offering a technology-rich and flexible form of online learning. A key component to assess the learner’s progress and effectiveness of online teaching is the Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) assessment in most of the MOOC courses. Uncertainty exists on the reliability and validity of the assessment component as it raises a qualm whether the real knowledge acquisition level reflects upon the assessment score. This is due to the possibility of random and smart guesses, learners can attempt, as MCQ assessments are more vulnerable than essay type assessments. This paper presents the architecture, development, evaluation of the I-Quiz system, an intelligent assessment tool, which captures and analyses both the implicit and explicit non-verbal behaviour of learner and provides insights about the learner’s real knowledge acquisition level. The I-Quiz system uses an innovative way to analyse the learner non-verbal behaviour and trains the agent using machine learning techniques. The intelligent agent in the system evaluates and predicts the real knowledge acquisition level of learners. A total of 500 undergraduate engineering students were asked to attend an on-Screen MCQ assessment test using the I-Quiz system comprising 20 multiple choice questions related to advanced C programming. The non-verbal behaviour of the learner is recorded using a front-facing camera during the entire assessment period. The resultant dataset of non-verbal behaviour and question-answer scores is used to train the random forest classifier model to predict the real knowledge acquisition level of the learner. The trained model after hyperparameter tuning and cross validation achieved a normalized prediction accuracy of 85.68%.     

A Framework for the Initialization of Student Models in Web-based Intelligent Tutoring Systems

Initializing a student model for individualized tutoring in educational applications is a difficult task, since very little is known about a new student. On the other hand, fast and efficient initialization of the student model is necessary. Otherwise the tutoring system may lose its credibility in the first interactions with the student. In this paper we describe a framework for the initialization of student models in Web-based educational applications. The framework is called ISM. The basic idea of ISM is to set initial values for all aspects of student models using an innovative combination of stereotypes and the distance weighted k-nearest neighbor algorithm. In particular, a student is first assigned to a stereotype category concerning her/his knowledge level of the domain being taught. Then, the model of the new student is initialized by applying the distance weighted k-nearest neighbor algorithm among the students that belong to the same stereotype category with the new student. ISM has been applied in a language learning system, which has been used as a test-bed. The quality of the student models created using ISM has been evaluated in an experiment involving classroom students and their teachers. The results from this experiment showed that the initialization of student models was improved using the ISM framework.     

小车单摆系统仿人智能控制与参数优化仿真

基于动觉智能图式的仿人智能控制理论设计小车单摆系统的控制器,包括：建立拉格朗日动力学模型, 规约简化控制问题,划分控制阶段,设计子控制器并组成总控制器．基于Simulink 构建仿真模型,将各控制阶段用 Matlab 程序实现后,与仿真模型相结合进行摆起和稳定控制的仿真研究．基于二进制和浮点数两种编码方式的遗传 算法对小车单摆控制器参数进行优化,寻求最优控制参数．     

Intelligent support for systems development: The notion and the issues

Enterprise modelling and information systems modelling have traditionally utilized techniques developed in the earlier disciplines of systems analysis and operational analysis. However, these tools have proved insufficient even for information systems modelling and their inadequacies make them less than ideal for enterprise modelling. Furthermore, it has proved difficult to integrate the techniques into a uniform framework representation. Extensive research since the early 1980s has produced support tools for information systems engineering in the academic sector which have generally failed to reach widespread commercial use. Commercially developed integrated support systems aimed at enterprise modelling and information system modelling use traditional techniques, with a lack of formalism. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a technique which overcomes the major inadequacies and which provides an integrating framework to represent both the information and the processing, at enterprise and systems modelling levels of abstraction. The technique is based on the use of a transition network, but extended to represent enterprise and system models in a meaningful way. The use of an intelligent repository, with associated processing of the formally defined requirements, specification and design statements, is novel, and provides the additional support to make the technique amenable to handling the design process from informal to formal specification. The use of a graphical user interface, linked directly to the deductive system and repository, ensures intuitive ease of use.     

Active acquisition of user models: Implications for decision-theoretic dialog planning and plan recognition

This article investigates the implications ofactive user model acquisition upon plan recognition, domain planning, and dialog planning in dialog architectures. A dialog system performs active user model acquisition by querying the user during the course of the dialog. Existing systems employ passive strategies that rely on inferences drawn from passive observation of the dialog. Though passive acquisition generally reduces unnecessary dialog, in some cases the system can effectively shorten the overall dialog length by selectively initiating subdialogs for acquiring information about the user.We propose a theory identifying conditions under which the dialog system should adoptactive acquisition goals. Active acquisition imposes a set ofrationality requirements not met by current dialog architectures. To ensure rational dialog decisions, we propose significant extensions to plan recognition, domain planning, and dialog planning models, incorporating decision-theoretic heuristics for expected utility. The most appropriate framework for active acquisition is a multi-attribute utility model wherein plans are compared along multiple dimensions of utility. We suggest a general architectural scheme, and present an example from a preliminary implementation.The author will be at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, untilThe author will be at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, untilThe author will be at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, untilThe author will be at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, untilThe author will be at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, untilThe author will be at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, until     

A Bi‐Directional Procedural Model for Architectural Design

It is a challenge for shape grammars to incorporate spatial hierarchy and interior connectivity of buildings in early design stages. To resolve this difficulty, we developed a bi‐directional procedural model: the forward process constructs the derivation tree with production rules, while the backward process realizes the tree with shapes in a stepwise manner (from leaves to the root). Each inverse‐derivation step involves essential geometric‐topological reasoning. With this bi‐directional framework, design constraints and objectives are encoded in the grammar‐shape translation. We conducted two applications. The first employs geometric primitives as terminals and the other uses previous designs as terminals. Both approaches lead to consistent interior connectivity and a rich spatial hierarchy. The results imply that bespoke geometric‐topological processing helps shape grammar to create plausible, novel compositions. Our model is more productive than hand‐coded shape grammars, while it is less computation‐intensive than evolutionary treatment of shape grammars.