A Decidable Confluence Test for Cognitive Models in ACT-R

Computational cognitive modeling investigates human cognition by building detailed computational models for cognitive processes. Adaptive Control of Thought - Rational (ACT-R) is a rule-based cognitive architecture that offers a widely employed framework to build such models. There is a sound and complete embedding of ACT-R in Constraint Handling Rules (CHR). Therefore analysis techniques from CHR can be used to reason about computational properties of ACT-R models. For example, confluence is the property that a program yields the same result for the same input regardless of the rules that are applied. In ACT-R models, there are often cognitive processes that should always yield the same result while others e.g. implement strategies to solve a problem that could yield different results. In this paper, a decidable confluence criterion for ACT-R is presented. It allows to identify ACT-R rules that are not confluent. Thereby, the modeler can check if his model has the desired behavior. The sound and complete translation of ACT-R to CHR from prior work is used to come up with a suitable invariant-based confluence criterion from the CHR literature. Proper invariants for translated ACT-R models are identified and proven to be decidable. The presented method coincides with confluence of the original ACT-R models.Comment: To appear in Stefania Costantini, Enrico Franconi, William Van Woensel, Roman Kontchakov, Fariba Sadri, and Dumitru Roman: "Proceedings of RuleML+RR 2017". Springer LNC

Unified patterns to transform business rules into an event coordination mechanism.

Business rules define and constrain various aspects of the business, such as vocabulary, behavior and organizational issues. Enforcing the rules of the business in information systems is however not straightforward, because different mechanisms exist for the (semi-)automatic transformation of various business constraints and rules. In this paper, we examine if and how business rules, not only data rules, but also process rules, timing rules, authorization rules, etc., can be expressed in SBVR and translated using patterns into a more uniform event mechanism, such that the event handling could provide an integrated enforcement of business rules of many kinds.Business rules; Event coordination; Business processes; SBVR; Declarative process modeling;

The Time Constraint in Conference Interpreting: Simultaneous vs. Consecutive

The present paper focuses on the concept of time constraint in interpreting. The main aim of the study is to compare the two modes of interpreting, i.e. consecutive and simultaneous in terms of the temporal load imposed by the operations constituting each of them. The discussion centres on the issues of external pacing and processing capacity management, the two focal points of The Time Constraint. The paper also examines a range of strategies interpreters resort to in order to minimise the impact of time pressure in both CI and SI, such as EVS regulation, economy of expression, text-editing strategies, and notation techniques

Survey of the State of the Art in Natural Language Generation: Core tasks, applications and evaluation

This paper surveys the current state of the art in Natural Language Generation (NLG), defined as the task of generating text or speech from non-linguistic input. A survey of NLG is timely in view of the changes that the field has undergone over the past decade or so, especially in relation to new (usually data-driven) methods, as well as new applications of NLG technology. This survey therefore aims to (a) give an up-to-date synthesis of research on the core tasks in NLG and the architectures adopted in which such tasks are organised; (b) highlight a number of relatively recent research topics that have arisen partly as a result of growing synergies between NLG and other areas of artificial intelligence; (c) draw attention to the challenges in NLG evaluation, relating them to similar challenges faced in other areas of Natural Language Processing, with an emphasis on different evaluation methods and the relationships between them.Comment: Published in Journal of AI Research (JAIR), volume 61, pp 75-170. 118 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Designing software to maximize learning1

This paper starts from the assumption that any evaluation of educational software should focus on whether or not, and the extent to which, it maximizes learning. It is particularly concerned with the impact of software on the quality of learning. The paper reviews key texts in the literature on learning, including some which relate directly to software development, and suggests ways in which a range of learning theories can inform the process of software design. The paper sets out to make a contribution to both the design and the evaluation of educational software

Critical Foundations of the Contextual Theory of Mind

The contextual mind is found attested in various usages of the term complement, in the background of Kant. The difficulties of Kant's intuitionism are taken up through Quine, but referential opacity is resolved as semantic presence in lived context. A further critique of rationalist linguistics is developed from Jakobson, showing generic functions in thought supporting abstraction, binding and thereby semantic categories. Thus Bolzano's influential philosophy of mathematics and science gives way to a critical view of the ancient heritage acknowledged by Plato.\ud \u

A planning approach to the automated synthesis of template-based process models

The design-time specification of flexible processes can be time-consuming and error-prone, due to the high number of tasks involved and their context-dependent nature. Such processes frequently suffer from potential interference among their constituents, since resources are usually shared by the process participants and it is difficult to foresee all the potential tasks interactions in advance. Concurrent tasks may not be independent from each other (e.g., they could operate on the same data at the same time), resulting in incorrect outcomes. To tackle these issues, we propose an approach for the automated synthesis of a library of template-based process models that achieve goals in dynamic and partially specified environments. The approach is based on a declarative problem definition and partial-order planning algorithms for template generation. The resulting templates guarantee sound concurrency in the execution of their activities and are reusable in a variety of partially specified contextual environments. As running example, a disaster response scenario is given. The approach is backed by a formal model and has been tested in experiment