Exploiting Deep Semantics and Compositionality of Natural Language for Human-Robot-Interaction

We develop a natural language interface for human robot interaction that implements reasoning about deep semantics in natural language. To realize the required deep analysis, we employ methods from cognitive linguistics, namely the modular and compositional framework of Embodied Construction Grammar (ECG) [Feldman, 2009]. Using ECG, robots are able to solve fine-grained reference resolution problems and other issues related to deep semantics and compositionality of natural language. This also includes verbal interaction with humans to clarify commands and queries that are too ambiguous to be executed safely. We implement our NLU framework as a ROS package and present proof-of-concept scenarios with different robots, as well as a survey on the state of the art

A hybrid e-learning framework: Process-based, semantically-enriched and service-oriented

Despite the recent innovations in e-Learning, much development is needed to ensure better learning experience for everyone and bridge the research gap in the current state of the art e-Learning artefacts. Contemporary e-learning artefacts possess various limitations as follows. First, they offer inadequate variations of adaptivity, since their recommendations are limited to e-learning resources, peers or communities. Second, they are often overwhelmed with technology at the expense of proper pedagogy and learning theories underpinning e-learning practices. Third, they do not comprehensively capture the e-learning experiences as their focus shifts to e-learning activities instead of e-learning processes. In reality, learning is a complex process that includes various activities and interactions between different roles to achieve certain gaols in a continuously evolving environment. Fourth, they tend more towards legacy systems and lack the agility and flexibility in their structure and design. To respond to the above limitations, this research aims at investigating the effectiveness of combining three advanced technologies (i.e., Business Process Modelling and Enactment, Semantics and Service Oriented Computing – SOC–) with learning pedagogy in order to enhance the e-learner experience. The key design artefact of this research is the development of the HeLPS e-Learning Framework – Hybrid e-Learning Framework that is Process-based, Semantically-enriched and Service Oriented-enabled. In this framework, a generic e-learning process has been developed bottom-up based on surveying a wide range of e-learning models (i.e., practical artefacts) and their underpinning pedagogies/concepts (i.e., theories); and then forming a generic e-learning process. Furthermore, an e-Learning Meta-Model has been developed in order to capture the semantics of e-learning domain and its processes. Such processes have been formally modelled and dynamically enacted using a service-oriented enabled architecture. This framework has been evaluated using a concern-based evaluation employing both static and dynamic approaches. The HeLPS e-Learning Framework along with its components have been evaluated by applying a data-driven approach and artificially-constructed case study to check its effectiveness in capturing the semantics, enriching e-learning processes and deriving services that can enhance the e-learner experience. Results revealed the effectiveness of combining the above-mentioned technologies in order to enhance the e-learner experience. Also, further research directions have been suggested.This research contributes to enhancing the e-learner experience by making the e-learning artefacts driven by pedagogy and informed by the latest technologies. One major novel contribution of this research is the introduction of a layered architectural framework (i.e., HeLPS) that combines business process modelling and enactment, semantics and SOC together. Another novel contribution is adopting the process-based approach in e-learning domain through: identifying these processes and developing a generic business process model from a set of related e-learning business process models that have the same goals and associated objectives. A third key contribution is the development of the e-Learning Meta-Model, which captures a high-abstract view of learning domain and encapsulates various domain rules using the Semantic Web Rule Language. Additional contribution is promoting the utilisation of Service-Orientation in e-learning through developing a semantically-enriched approach to identify and discover web services from e-learning business process models. Fifth, e-Learner Experience Model (eLEM) and e-Learning Capability Maturity Model (eLCMM) have been developed, where the former aims at identifying and quantifying the e-learner experience and the latter represents a well-defined evolutionary plateau towards achieving a mature e-learning process from a technological perspective. Both models have been combined with a new developed data-driven Validation and Verification Model to develop a Concern-based Evaluation Approach for e-Learning artefacts, which is considered as another contribution

Microtheories for SDI - Accounting for diversity of local conceptualisations at a global level

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.The categorization and conceptualization of geographic features is fundamental to cartography, geographic information retrieval, routing applications, spatial decision support and data sharing in general. However, there is no standard conceptualization of the world. Humans conceptualize features based on numerous factors including cultural background, knowledge, motivation and particularly space and time. Thus, geographic features are prone to multiple, context-dependent conceptualizations reflecting local conditions. This creates semantic heterogeneity and undermines interoperability. Standardization of a shared definition is often employed to overcome semantic heterogeneity. However, this approach loses important local diversity in feature conceptualizations and may result in feature definitions which are too broad or too specific. This work proposes the use of microtheories in Spatial Data Infrastructures, such as INSPIRE, to account for diversity of local conceptualizations while maintaining interoperability at a global level. It introduces a novel method of structuring microtheories based on space and time, represented by administrative boundaries, to reflect variations in feature conceptualization. A bottom-up approach, based on non-standard inference, is used to create an appropriate global-level feature definition from the local definitions. Conceptualizations of rivers, forests and estuaries throughout Europe are used to demonstrate how the approach can improve the INSPIRE data model and ease its adoption by European member states

Musical Bodies, Musical Minds

An enactive account of musicality that proposes new ways of thinking about musical experience, musical development in infancy, music and evolution, and more. Musical Bodies, Musical Minds offers an innovative account of human musicality that draws on recent developments in embodied cognitive science. The authors explore musical cognition as a form of sense-making that unfolds across the embodied, environmentally embedded, and sociomaterially extended dimensions that compose the enactment of human worlds of meaning. This perspective enables new ways of understanding musical experience, the development of musicality in infancy and childhood, music's emergence in human evolution, and the nature of musical emotions, empathy, and creativity. Developing their account, the authors link a diverse array of ideas from fields including neuroscience, theoretical biology, psychology, developmental studies, social cognition, and education. Drawing on these insights, they show how dynamic processes of adaptive body-brain-environment interactivity drive musical cognition across a range of contexts, extending it beyond the personal (inner) domain of musical agents and out into the material and social worlds they inhabit and influence. An enactive approach to musicality, they argue, can reveal important aspects of human being and knowing that are often lost or obscured in the modern technologically driven world

A knowledge based approach to integration of products, processes and reconfigurable automation resources

The success of next generation automotive companies will depend upon their ability to adapt to ever changing market trends thus becoming highly responsive. In the automotive sector, the assembly line design and reconfiguration is an especially critical and extremely complex job. The current research addresses some of the aspects of this activity under the umbrella of a larger ongoing research project called Business Driven Automation (BDA) project. The BDA project aims to carry out complete virtual 3D modeling-based verifications of the assembly line for new or revised products in contrast to the prevalent practice of manual evaluation of effects of product change on physical resources. [Continues.

Perspectives on the Neuroscience of Cognition and Consciousness

The origin and current use of the concepts of computation, representation and information in Neuroscience are examined and conceptual flaws are identified which vitiate their usefulness for addressing problems of the neural basis of Cognition and Consciousness. In contrast, a convergence of views is presented to support the characterization of the Nervous System as a complex dynamical system operating in the metastable regime, and capable of evolving to configurations and transitions in phase space with potential relevance for Cognition and Consciousness