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Automatic Text Simplification
Thanks to the availability of texts on the Web in recent years, increased knowledge and information have been made available to broader audiences. However, the way in which a text is written—its vocabulary, its syntax—can be difficult to read and understand for many people, especially those with poor literacy, cognitive or linguistic impairment, or those with limited knowledge of the language of the text. Texts containing uncommon words or longand complicated sentences can be difficult to read and understand by people as well as difficult to analyze by machines. Automatic text simplification is the process of transforming a text into another text which, ideally conveying the same message, will be easier to read and understand by a broader audience. The process usually involves the replacement of difficult or unknown phrases with simpler equivalents and the transformation of long and syntactically complex sentences into shorter and less complex ones. Automatic text simplification, a research topic which started 20 years ago, now has taken on a central role in natural language processing research not only because of the interesting challenges it posesses but also because of its social implications. This book presents past and current research in text simplification, exploring key issues including automatic readability assessment, lexical simplification, and syntactic simplification. It also provides a detailed account of machine learning techniques currently used in simplification, describes full systems designed for specific languages and target audiences, and offers available resources for research and development together with text simplification evaluation techniques.
Multi-Objective Decision Making
Many real-world decision problems have multiple objectives. For example, when choosing a medical treatment plan, we want to maximize the efficacy of the treatment, but also minimize the side effects. These objectives typically conflict, e.g., we can often increase the efficacy of the treatment, but at the cost of more severe side effects. In this book, we outline how to deal with multiple objectives in decision-theoretic planning and reinforcement learning algorithms. To illustrate this, we employ the popular problem classes of multi-objective Markov decision processes (MOMDPs) and multi-objective coordination graphs (MO-CoGs). First, we discuss different use cases for multi-objective decision making, and why they often necessitate explicitly multi-objective algorithms. We advocate a utility-based approach to multi-objective decision making, i.e., that what constitutes an optimal solution to a multi-objective decision problem should be derived from the available information about user utility. We show how different assumptions about user utility and what types of policies are allowed lead to different solution concepts, which we outline in a taxonomy of multi-objective decision problems. Second, we show how to create new methods for multi-objective decision making using existing single-objective methods as a basis. Focusing on planning, we describe two ways to creating multi-objective algorithms: in the inner loop approach, the inner workings of a single-objective method are adapted to work with multi-objective solution concepts; in the outer loop approach, a wrapper is created around a single-objective method that solves the multi-objective problem as a series of single-objective problems. After discussing the creation of such methods for the planning setting, we discuss how these approaches apply to the learning setting. Next, we discuss three promising application domains for multi-objective decision making algorithms: energy, health, and infrastructure and transportation. Finally, we conclude by outlining important open problems and promising future directions.
Mathematical Basics of Motion and Deformation in Computer Graphics
This synthesis lecture presents an intuitive introduction to the mathematics of motion and deformation in computer graphics. Starting with familiar concepts in graphics, such as Euler angles, quaternions, and affine transformations, we illustrate that a mathematical theory behind these concepts enables us to develop the techniques for efficient/effective creation of computer animation. This book, therefore, serves as a good guidepost to mathematics (differential geometry and Lie theory) for students of geometric modeling and animation in computer graphics. Experienced developers and researchers will also benefit from this book, since it gives a comprehensive overview of mathematical approaches that are particularly useful in character modeling, deformation, and animation.
Research in the Wild
The phrase «in-the-wild» is becoming popular again in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), describing approaches to HCI research and accounts of user experience phenomena that differ from those derived from other lab-based methods. The phrase first came to the forefront 20-25 years ago when anthropologists Jean Lave (1988), Lucy Suchman (1987), and Ed Hutchins (1995) began writing about cognition being in-the-wild. Today, it is used more broadly to refer to research that seeks to understand new technology interventions in everyday living. A reason for its resurgence in contemporary HCI is an acknowledgment that so much technology is now embedded and used in our everyday lives. Researchers have begun following suit—decamping from their usability and living labs and moving into the wild; carrying out in-situ development and engagement, sampling experiences, and probing people in their homes and on the streets. The aim of this book is to examine what this new direction entails and what it means for HCI theory, practice, and design. The focus is on the insights, demands and concerns. But how does research in the wild differ from the other applied approaches in interaction design, such as contextual design, action research, or ethnography? What is added by labeling user research as being in-the-wild? One main difference is where the research starts and ends: unlike user-centered, and more specifically, ethnographic approaches which typically begin by observing existing practices and then suggesting general design implications or system requirements, in-the-wild approaches create and evaluate new technologies and experiences in situ (Rogers, 2012). Moreover, novel technologies are often developed to augment people, places, and settings, without necessarily designing them for specific user needs. There has also been a shift in design thinking. Instead of developing solutions that fit in with existing practices, researchers are experimenting with new technological possibilities that can change and even disrupt behavior. Opportunities are created, interventions installed, and different ways of behaving are encouraged. A key concern is how people react, change and integrate these in their everyday lives. This book outlines the emergence and development of research in the wild. It is structured around a framework for conceptualizing and bringing together the different strands. It covers approaches, methods, case studies, and outcomes. Finally, it notes that there is more in the wild research in HCI than usability and other kinds of user studies in HCI and what the implications of this are for the field.
Designing for Gesture and Tangible Interaction
Interactive technology is increasingly integrated with physical objects that do not have a traditional keyboard and mouse style of interaction, and many do not even have a display. These objects require new approaches to interaction design, referred to as post-WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointer) or as embodied interaction design. This book provides an overview of the design opportunities and issues associated with two embodied interaction modalities that allow us to leave the traditional keyboard behind: tangible and gesture interaction. We explore the issues in designing for this new age of interaction by highlighting the significance and contexts for these modalities. We explore the design of tangible interaction with a reconceptualization of the traditional keyboard as a Tangible Keyboard, and the design of interactive three-dimensional (3D) models as Tangible Models. We explore the design of gesture interaction through the design of gesture-base commands for a walk-up-and-use information display, and through the design of a gesture-based dialogue for the willful marionette. We conclude with design principles for tangible and gesture interaction and a call for research on the cognitive effects of these modalities.