Providing personalized Internet services by means of context-aware spoken dialogue systems

The widespread use of new mobile technology implementing wireless communications enables a new type of advanced applications to access information services on the Internet. In order to provide services which meet the user needs through intelligent information retrieval, the system must sense and interpret the user environment and the communication context. Though context-awareness is vital to provide services adapted to the user preferences, it cannot be useful if such services are difficult to access. The development of spoken dialogue systems for these applications facilitates interaction in natural language with the environment which is also benefited from contextual information. In this paper, we propose a framework to develop context-aware dialogue systems that dynamically incorporate user specific requirements and preferences as well as characteristics about the interaction environment, in order to improve and personalize web information and services. We have identified the major components for context-aware dialogue systems and placed them within a general-purpose architecture. The framework also describes a representation mode based on a dialogue register in order to share information between the elements of the architecture, and incorporates statistical methodologies for dialogue management in order to reduce the effort required for both the implementation of a new system and the adaptation to a new task. We have evaluated our proposal developing a travel-planning system, and provide a detailed discussion of its positive influence in the quality of the interaction and the information and services provided.Research funded by projects CICYT TIN2011- 28620-C02-01, CICYT TEC2011-28626-C02-02, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485), and DPS2008- 07029-C02-02.Publicad

An Experience-Connected e-Learning System with a Personalization Mechanism for Learners’ Situations and Preferences

This paper presents an “experience-connected” e- Learning system that facilitates users to learn practical skills of foreign language by associating knowledge and daily-life experiences. “Experience-Connected” means that the users of this system receive personalized and situation-dependent learning materials automatically. Knowledge associated to users’ daily-life has the following advantages: 1) provides opportunities to learn frequently, and 2) provides clear and practical context information about foreign language usage. The unique feature of this system is a dynamic relevance computation mechanism that retrieves learning materials according to both preference relevance and spatiotemporal relevance. Users of this system obtain appropriate learning materials, without manual and time-consuming search processes. This paper proves the feasibility of the system by showing the actual system implementation that automatically broadcasts the media-data of foreign language learning materials to smart-phones

What are the affordances of information and communication technologies?

The paper examines the notion that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have affordances that epitomize the features of our late modern age (Giddens, 1991) and explores whether these affordances (Salomon, 1993, p. 51) can be used to facilitate particular approaches to educational practice. It argues that a clear articulation of these affordances would enable us to understand how these technologies can be most effectively used to support learning and teaching. We believe that any one affordance can be considered to have both positive and negative connotations and the paper draws on social and educational theory to provide an initial taxonomy of these affordances

Realising Team-Working in the Field: An Agent-based Approach

Multi-agent systems technology is applied to enable co-operation between mobile workers in the field, minimising user intervention and increasing reachability. A component-based approach is taken to simplify the management of deployed co-operation services. A Personal Assistant running on a mobile device is introduced to show how an intelligent and autonomous agent can increase the utility of users during workforce co-operation processes. Finally, a real world trial of the technology by network installation and maintenance engineers in the UK is described. Some technical issues revealed during the trial are discussed, as is the impact of the technology on the business process

What is eHealth (6)? Development of a Conceptual Model for eHealth: Qualitative Study with Key Informants

©Tim Shaw, Deborah McGregor, Melissa Brunner, Melanie Keep, Anna Janssen, Stewart Barnet. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 24.10.2017. BACKGROUND: Despite rapid growth in eHealth research, there remains a lack of consistency in defining and using terms related to eHealth. More widely cited definitions provide broad understanding of eHealth but lack sufficient conceptual clarity to operationalize eHealth and enable its implementation in health care practice, research, education, and policy. Definitions that are more detailed are often context or discipline specific, limiting ease of translation of these definitions across the breadth of eHealth perspectives and situations. A conceptual model of eHealth that adequately captures its complexity and potential overlaps is required. This model must also be sufficiently detailed to enable eHealth operationalization and hypothesis testing.OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to develop a conceptual practice-based model of eHealth to support health professionals in applying eHealth to their particular professional or discipline contexts.METHODS: We conducted semistructured interviews with key informants (N=25) from organizations involved in health care delivery, research, education, practice, governance, and policy to explore their perspectives on and experiences with eHealth. We used purposeful sampling for maximum diversity. Interviews were coded and thematically analyzed for emergent domains.RESULTS: Thematic analyses revealed 3 prominent but overlapping domains of eHealth: (1) health in our hands (using eHealth technologies to monitor, track, and inform health), (2) interacting for health (using digital technologies to enable health communication among practitioners and between health professionals and clients or patients), and (3) data enabling health (collecting, managing, and using health data). These domains formed a model of eHealth that addresses the need for clear definitions and a taxonomy of eHealth while acknowledging the fluidity of this area and the strengths of initiatives that span multiple eHealth domains.CONCLUSIONS: This model extends current understanding of eHealth by providing clearly defined domains of eHealth while highlighting the benefits of using digital technologies in ways that cross several domains. It provides the depth of perspectives and examples of eHealth use that are lacking in previous research. On the basis of this model, we suggest that eHealth initiatives that are most impactful would include elements from all 3 domains

Query-Focused Video Summarization: Dataset, Evaluation, and A Memory Network Based Approach

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in video summarization. However, one of the main obstacles to the research on video summarization is the user subjectivity - users have various preferences over the summaries. The subjectiveness causes at least two problems. First, no single video summarizer fits all users unless it interacts with and adapts to the individual users. Second, it is very challenging to evaluate the performance of a video summarizer. To tackle the first problem, we explore the recently proposed query-focused video summarization which introduces user preferences in the form of text queries about the video into the summarization process. We propose a memory network parameterized sequential determinantal point process in order to attend the user query onto different video frames and shots. To address the second challenge, we contend that a good evaluation metric for video summarization should focus on the semantic information that humans can perceive rather than the visual features or temporal overlaps. To this end, we collect dense per-video-shot concept annotations, compile a new dataset, and suggest an efficient evaluation method defined upon the concept annotations. We conduct extensive experiments contrasting our video summarizer to existing ones and present detailed analyses about the dataset and the new evaluation method

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

A comparison of field-based and lab-based experiments to evaluate user experience of personalised mobile devices

There is a growing debate in the literature regarding the tradeoffs between lab and field evaluation of mobile devices. This paper presents a comparison of field-based and lab-based experiments to evaluate user experience of personalised mobile devices at large sports events. A lab experiment is recommended when the testing focus is on the user interface and application-oriented usability related issues. However, the results suggest that a field experiment is more suitable for investigating a wider range of factors affecting the overall acceptability of the designed mobile service. Such factors include the system function and effects of actual usage contexts aspects. Where open and relaxed communication is important (e.g., where participant groups are naturally reticent to communicate), this is more readily promoted by the use of a field study