Aylett, Ruth

Bental, Diana

Forth, Jamie

Giannimaras, Thanasis

Maxwell, Deborah

Mehrpouya, Hadi

Shek, Jamie

Stewart, Robert

Wiggins, Geraint A.

Woods, Mel

English

We present SerenA, a multi-site, pervasive, agent environment that suppers serendipitous discovery in research. The project starts from the premise that human users cannot be aware of all the research information that is relevant to their work, because of the compartmentalisation of research into fields around particular journals, and, simply, because there is too much to know. In particular, the Semantic Web provides a resource which can assist, but there is more to be discovered than the things that a user might deliberately search for. SerenA, then, attempts to assist researchers by presenting them with information that they did not know they needed to know about their research

Discovery Research Portal

                                                              University of DundeeSerenAForth, Jamie; Giannimaras, Thanasis; Wiggins, Geraint A. ; Stewart, Robert; Bental, Diana;Aylett, Ruth; Maxwell, Deborah; Mehrpouya, Hadi; Shek, Jamie; Woods, MelPublished in:Advances on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent SystemsDOI:10.1007/978-3-642-38073-0_8Publication date:2013Document VersionEarly version, also known as pre-printLink to publication in Discovery Research PortalCitation for published version (APA):Forth, J., Giannimaras, T., Wiggins, G. A., Stewart, R., Bental, D., Aylett, R., ... Woods, M. (2013). SerenA: amulti-site pervasive agent environment that supports serendipitous discovery in research. In Y. Demazeau , T.Ishida, J. M. Corchado, & J. Bajo (Eds.), Advances on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems:11th International Conference, PAAMS 2013, Salamanca, Spain, May 22-24, 2013. Proceedings. (pp. 85-96).(Lecture notes in computer science; Vol. 7879). Berlin: Springer . 10.1007/978-3-642-38073-0_8General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in Discovery Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or othercopyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated withthese rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from Discovery Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain. • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal.Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Download date: 17. Mar. 2016Demonstrating SerenA:Chance Encounters in the Space of IdeasJamie Forth1, Athanasios Giannimaras1, Geraint A. Wiggins1,Robert Stewart2, Diana Bental2, Ruth Aylett2,Deborah Maxwell3, Hadi Mehrpouya3, Jamie Shek3, and Mel Woods31 School of Electronic Engineering and Computer ScienceQueen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, England, E1 4NS2 School of Mathematical and Computer SciencesHeriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH14 4AS3 Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and DesignUniversity of Dundee, Perth Road, Dundee, Scotland, DD1 4HT1 IntroductionWe demonstrate SerenA, a multi-site, pervasive, agent environment that sup-pers serendipitous discovery in research. SerenA attempts to assist researchersby presenting them with information that they did not know they needed toknow about their research. In this demonstration, we show:– Public SerenA: Streamed information from a library, displayed to stimulateideas;– SerenA user modelling: On-line discovery of user information and inspectableuser model;– SerenA suggesting: User’s notes and suggestions for reading;– SerenA intervening: Informed academic match-making by the agent system.If possible, we will demonstrate further progress in the project beyond the aboveat the conference. If the networking facilities at the conference allow, delegateswill be able to take part in the demos via their browsers. It will not be possible todownload the SerenA Notebook App, because of technical restrictions appliedby the Android App Store.2 Public SerenAOur first demo is of public SerenA. It is conceived in the context of a major UKcity library. It is architecturally melded with the building, in that its outputs areprojected directly on to walls, using site-specific designs that integrate with thearchitecture. Its outputs consist of simple visualisations (the simplest being meretext) of documents that are ordered via the library’s on-line order system. Theinformation is filtered, so that no connection with the library user ordering it canbe made: their name is not displayed, nor is the time at which they placed theirorder. Various display methods are implemented. The aim of the installation2 Forth et al.(and the demo) is to stimulate ideas in people viewing, that are connected withrecent activity in the Library. A simple example design is given by Forth et al.[1, Fig. 2]; here we demonstrate more abitious designs.This demo is simple as far as the agent system is concerned. A shadow agent[1, §2.1] receives text input in an agreed format from an authenticated datasource. The agent preprocesses the data into the internal RDF representation,and sends it directly to another shadow agent, which shadows the devices thatare displaying the information. Authentication is available, but in this demowe omit it4 so that conference delegates may connect and watch the demo. Seewww.serena.ac.uk/paamsdemo/ for technical details of downloads to use theservice.3 SerenA user modellingSerenA builds a model of its user, including information given by the user, infor-mation inferred directly under the control of the user, and information inferredabout the user by the system. The modelling process is kick-started by our Dis-cover.Me.Semantically service5, which searches for information about a new user,and then consults with them to select what is relevant. Discover.Me.Semanticallyis a web-based tool that allows its user to author RDF representing their profes-sional and personal interests, skills and expertise. The stand-alone implementa-tion allows the user to download this RDF representation as a file to be hostedon their own web pages; here, in the version avaialable from www.serena.ac.uk/paamsdemo/, we download your information6 into the SerenA user model,and allow you to inspect it, using a third-party web resource designed for thatpurpose.This part of the demo does not engage the agent system, but the RDF usermodel is crucial to SerenA’s operation, so it is important underpinning tech-nology.4 SerenA suggestingA key issue in supplying the user with useful information is to understand theresearch goals that they are expressing in their notes, files and email7. We use theGATE natural language processing system8to detect goals in natural languagesentences [2], and an ontology for goals has been defined [4].4 No sensitive information is available in the demo system.5 Source code under GPLv3 license: https://github.com/robstewart57/discover-me-semantically. Running instance: http://serena.macs.hw.ac.uk/serena/discover-me-semantically/6 By proceeding with the Discover.Me.Semantically process, you agree for us to storeyour data temporarily. However, we promise to delete it after the conference, andnot to use it for anything other than our demo meanwhile.7 Of course, SerenA does not access files or email without permission.8 http://gate.ac.ukDemonstrating SerenA 3This part of the demo focuses on the SerenA Semantic Notebook App [1, 3]for Android. The researcher-user is invited to make notes, add tagged images,keywords, and so on, all in free text. Interaction with the user is then managedby SerenA processing the user’s text, and then adding annotations (e.g., itemsof text, web links), to the notes, making the distinction between the user’s notesand SerenA’s additions clear by means of typography. Example views are givenby Forth et al. [1, Fig. 1].From the agent perspective, when the user adds a new note, it is passed by theAndroid device via its shadow agent into the agent user model (which is wherethe user’s notes are stored). The agent also broadcasts the arrival of the note, asa piece of text associated with a given user, to the entire agent system. At thispoint, any agent that is capable of processing text may process it and attemptto do something with the result. Here, we focus on the goal-detection agent,which processes the text and, if it finds a research goal, attempts to express inRDF what that goal is. If it is successful, the goal is added to the user model(with provenance, so that it can be undone if later proven incorrect, and also sothat its e↵ect can be time-appropriate). The goal is also broadcast, identified assuch in RDF, so that agents with expertise on goals may operate on it. Here wefocus on a simple lookup agent, that receives the broadcast goal, recognises theaction in the goal (for example, “find out about”, or “look up”) as a researchgoal, and looks up its object (the thing sought) on DBpedia. If it is successful,then it reports the fact to the user model, which takes the resulting suggestionand adds it to the notebook in the user model. As a result of doing this, a visualrepresentation of the suggestion appears in the notebook, associated with thenote that gave rise to it.In more realistic situations than this simple demo, this kind of decoupledinteraction is advantageous for two reasons: first, SerenA must avoid the pa-perclip e↵ect9; and, second, the reasoning required to suppress pointless or dullinformation is often extensive, and cannot be performed on the fly, while theuser waits. The concomitant advantage of asynchrony is that network outagesdo not degrade the experience: the user will come to expect SerenA suggestionsat some time after they make their notes, but not immediately.5 SerenA interveningThe final part of our planned demo builds on the situation above, introducingnew users, who are co-located at a conference in Salamanca. As the first usermakes a note, and it content resonates around the agent community, as above,the second users’ agents receive the broadcast, noting that that user has madenotes on a closely related topic. Both users are informed, via their notebooks,that the other is present at the conference, and an appropriate web reference isgiven, to enable them to look each other up.9 The irritation produced when Microsoft’s Clippy character used to intrude unex-pectedly, distracting the user from their task, with often incorrect information.4 Forth et al.AcknowledgementsThis work is supported by EPSRC Sandpit Research Grant EP/H042741/1 –SerenA: Chance encounters in the Space of Ideas.References1. J. Forth, T. Giannimaras, G. A. Wiggins, R. Stewart, D. Bental, R. Aylett,D. Maxwell, H. Mehrpouya, J. Shek, and M. Woods3. Serena: A multi-site per-vasive agent environment that supports serendipitous discovery in research. InY. Demazeau, T. Ishida, J. M. Corchado, and J. Bajo, editors, Practical applica-tions of agents and multi-agent systems, Advances in Intelligent and Soft Comput-ing. Springer, 2013.2. A. Giannimaras. Goal detection in natural language text. Msc thesis, School ofElectronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London,2012.3. D. Maxwell, M. Woods, S. Makri, D. Bental, G. Kefalidou, and S. Sharples. Design-ing a semantic sketchbook to create opportunities for serendipity. In Proceedings ofBCS HCI Conference, 2012.4. S. Piao, D. Bental, J. Whittle, R. Aylett, S. Makri, and X. Sun. A pilot study: Deriv-ing a users’ goal framework from a corpus of interviews and diaries. In Proceedingsof the Workshop on Semantic Relations II - Enhancing Resources and Applications,2012.

A pilot study: Deriving a users’ goal framework from a corpus of interviews and diaries.

Designing a semantic sketchbook to create opportunities for serendipity.

Goal detection in natural language text. Msc thesis,

Serena: A multi-site pervasive agent environment that supports serendipitous discovery in research.

SerenA:a multi-site pervasive agent environment that supports serendipitous discovery in research

We present SerenA, a multi-site, pervasive, agent environment that suppers serendipitous discovery in research. The project starts from the premise that human users cannot be aware of all the research information that is relevant to their work, because of the compartmentalisation of research into fields around particular journals, and, simply, because there is too much to know. In particular, the Semantic Web provides a resource which can assist, but there is more to be discovered than the things that a user might deliberately search for. SerenA, then, attempts to assist researchers by presenting them with information that they did not know they needed to know about their research.</p

Heriot Watt Pure

SerenA:A multi-site pervasive agent environment that supports serendipitous discovery in research

                                                                    University of DundeeSerenAForth, Jamie; Giannimaras, Thanasis; Wiggins, Geraint A. ; Stewart, Robert; Bental, Diana;Aylett, RuthPublished in:Advances on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent SystemsDOI:10.1007/978-3-642-38073-0_8Publication date:2013Document VersionEarly version, also known as pre-printLink to publication in Discovery Research PortalCitation for published version (APA):Forth, J., Giannimaras, T., Wiggins, G. A., Stewart, R., Bental, D., Aylett, R., Maxwell, D., Mehrpouya, H., Shek,J., & Woods, M. (2013). SerenA: a multi-site pervasive agent environment that supports serendipitous discoveryin research. In Y. Demazeau , T. Ishida, J. M. Corchado, & J. Bajo (Eds.), Advances on Practical Applications ofAgents and Multi-Agent Systems: 11th International Conference, PAAMS 2013, Salamanca, Spain, May 22-24,2013. Proceedings (pp. 85-96). (Lecture notes in computer science; Vol. 7879). Springer .https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38073-0_8General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in Discovery Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or othercopyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated withthese rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from Discovery Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain. • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal.Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Download date: 16. Aug. 2023Demonstrating SerenA:Chance Encounters in the Space of IdeasJamie Forth1, Athanasios Giannimaras1, Geraint A. Wiggins1,Robert Stewart2, Diana Bental2, Ruth Aylett2,Deborah Maxwell3, Hadi Mehrpouya3, Jamie Shek3, and Mel Woods31 School of Electronic Engineering and Computer ScienceQueen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, England, E1 4NS2 School of Mathematical and Computer SciencesHeriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH14 4AS3 Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and DesignUniversity of Dundee, Perth Road, Dundee, Scotland, DD1 4HT1 IntroductionWe demonstrate SerenA, a multi-site, pervasive, agent environment that sup-pers serendipitous discovery in research. SerenA attempts to assist researchersby presenting them with information that they did not know they needed toknow about their research. In this demonstration, we show:– Public SerenA: Streamed information from a library, displayed to stimulateideas;– SerenA user modelling: On-line discovery of user information and inspectableuser model;– SerenA suggesting: User’s notes and suggestions for reading;– SerenA intervening: Informed academic match-making by the agent system.If possible, we will demonstrate further progress in the project beyond the aboveat the conference. If the networking facilities at the conference allow, delegateswill be able to take part in the demos via their browsers. It will not be possible todownload the SerenA Notebook App, because of technical restrictions appliedby the Android App Store.2 Public SerenAOur first demo is of public SerenA. It is conceived in the context of a major UKcity library. It is architecturally melded with the building, in that its outputs areprojected directly on to walls, using site-specific designs that integrate with thearchitecture. Its outputs consist of simple visualisations (the simplest being meretext) of documents that are ordered via the library’s on-line order system. Theinformation is filtered, so that no connection with the library user ordering it canbe made: their name is not displayed, nor is the time at which they placed theirorder. Various display methods are implemented. The aim of the installation2 Forth et al.(and the demo) is to stimulate ideas in people viewing, that are connected withrecent activity in the Library. A simple example design is given by Forth et al.[1, Fig. 2]; here we demonstrate more abitious designs.This demo is simple as far as the agent system is concerned. A shadow agent[1, §2.1] receives text input in an agreed format from an authenticated datasource. The agent preprocesses the data into the internal RDF representation,and sends it directly to another shadow agent, which shadows the devices thatare displaying the information. Authentication is available, but in this demowe omit it4 so that conference delegates may connect and watch the demo. Seewww.serena.ac.uk/paamsdemo/ for technical details of downloads to use theservice.3 SerenA user modellingSerenA builds a model of its user, including information given by the user, infor-mation inferred directly under the control of the user, and information inferredabout the user by the system. The modelling process is kick-started by our Dis-cover.Me.Semantically service5, which searches for information about a new user,and then consults with them to select what is relevant. Discover.Me.Semanticallyis a web-based tool that allows its user to author RDF representing their profes-sional and personal interests, skills and expertise. The stand-alone implementa-tion allows the user to download this RDF representation as a file to be hostedon their own web pages; here, in the version avaialable from www.serena.ac.uk/paamsdemo/, we download your information6 into the SerenA user model,and allow you to inspect it, using a third-party web resource designed for thatpurpose.This part of the demo does not engage the agent system, but the RDF usermodel is crucial to SerenA’s operation, so it is important underpinning tech-nology.4 SerenA suggestingA key issue in supplying the user with useful information is to understand theresearch goals that they are expressing in their notes, files and email7. We use theGATE natural language processing system8to detect goals in natural languagesentences [2], and an ontology for goals has been defined [4].4 No sensitive information is available in the demo system.5 Source code under GPLv3 license: https://github.com/robstewart57/discover-me-semantically. Running instance: http://serena.macs.hw.ac.uk/serena/discover-me-semantically/6 By proceeding with the Discover.Me.Semantically process, you agree for us to storeyour data temporarily. However, we promise to delete it after the conference, andnot to use it for anything other than our demo meanwhile.7 Of course, SerenA does not access files or email without permission.8http://gate.ac.ukDemonstrating SerenA 3This part of the demo focuses on the SerenA Semantic Notebook App [1, 3]for Android. The researcher-user is invited to make notes, add tagged images,keywords, and so on, all in free text. Interaction with the user is then managedby SerenA processing the user’s text, and then adding annotations (e.g., itemsof text, web links), to the notes, making the distinction between the user’s notesand SerenA’s additions clear by means of typography. Example views are givenby Forth et al. [1, Fig. 1].From the agent perspective, when the user adds a new note, it is passed by theAndroid device via its shadow agent into the agent user model (which is wherethe user’s notes are stored). The agent also broadcasts the arrival of the note, asa piece of text associated with a given user, to the entire agent system. At thispoint, any agent that is capable of processing text may process it and attemptto do something with the result. Here, we focus on the goal-detection agent,which processes the text and, if it finds a research goal, attempts to express inRDF what that goal is. If it is successful, the goal is added to the user model(with provenance, so that it can be undone if later proven incorrect, and also sothat its e↵ect can be time-appropriate). The goal is also broadcast, identified assuch in RDF, so that agents with expertise on goals may operate on it. Here wefocus on a simple lookup agent, that receives the broadcast goal, recognises theaction in the goal (for example, “find out about”, or “look up”) as a researchgoal, and looks up its object (the thing sought) on DBpedia. If it is successful,then it reports the fact to the user model, which takes the resulting suggestionand adds it to the notebook in the user model. As a result of doing this, a visualrepresentation of the suggestion appears in the notebook, associated with thenote that gave rise to it.In more realistic situations than this simple demo, this kind of decoupledinteraction is advantageous for two reasons: first, SerenA must avoid the pa-perclip e↵ect9; and, second, the reasoning required to suppress pointless or dullinformation is often extensive, and cannot be performed on the fly, while theuser waits. The concomitant advantage of asynchrony is that network outagesdo not degrade the experience: the user will come to expect SerenA suggestionsat some time after they make their notes, but not immediately.5 SerenA interveningThe final part of our planned demo builds on the situation above, introducingnew users, who are co-located at a conference in Salamanca. As the first usermakes a note, and it content resonates around the agent community, as above,the second users’ agents receive the broadcast, noting that that user has madenotes on a closely related topic. Both users are informed, via their notebooks,that the other is present at the conference, and an appropriate web reference isgiven, to enable them to look each other up.9 The irritation produced when Microsoft’s Clippy character used to intrude unex-pectedly, distracting the user from their task, with often incorrect information.4 Forth et al.AcknowledgementsThis work is supported by EPSRC Sandpit Research Grant EP/H042741/1 –SerenA: Chance encounters in the Space of Ideas.References1. J. Forth, T. Giannimaras, G. A. Wiggins, R. Stewart, D. Bental, R. Aylett,D. Maxwell, H. Mehrpouya, J. Shek, and M. Woods3. Serena: A multi-site per-vasive agent environment that supports serendipitous discovery in research. InY. Demazeau, T. Ishida, J. M. Corchado, and J. Bajo, editors, Practical applica-tions of agents and multi-agent systems, Advances in Intelligent and Soft Comput-ing. Springer, 2013.2. A. Giannimaras. Goal detection in natural language text. Msc thesis, School ofElectronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London,2012.3. D. Maxwell, M. Woods, S. Makri, D. Bental, G. Kefalidou, and S. Sharples. Design-ing a semantic sketchbook to create opportunities for serendipity. In Proceedings ofBCS HCI Conference, 2012.4. S. Piao, D. Bental, J. Whittle, R. Aylett, S. Makri, and X. Sun. A pilot study: Deriv-ing a users’ goal framework from a corpus of interviews and diaries. In Proceedingsof the Workshop on Semantic Relations II - Enhancing Resources and Applications,2012.

Jamie Forth

Thanasis Giannimaras

Geraint A. Wiggins

Robert Stewart

Diana Bental

Ruth Aylett

Deborah Maxwell

Hadi Mehrpouya

Jamie Shek

Mel Woods

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SerenA: A Multi-site Pervasive Agent Environment That Supports Serendipitous Discovery in Research

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SerenA:a multi-site pervasive agent environment that supports serendipitous discovery in research

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