Prof. Fiorella de Rosis

University of Bari

Bari

Italy

T.:+39 051 66 60

Fax: +39 051 66 0 99

http://di.uniba.it/intint/

decarolis@di.uniba.it

UoB Department of Informatics, University of Bari

Department of Informatics, University of Bari. Research Group on Intelligent Interfaces http://di.uniba.it/intint/

The Department of Informatics includes about 50 permanent researchers and teachers with different degrees of experience. It was built more that 30 years ago and performs qualified research in the areas of theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, software engineering and others.

The Intelligent Interfaces Research Group has a long experience in the area of user-adapted interaction.

We are interested in studying how users may be described in models that are revised dynamically and how computer answers may be generated automatically, by adapting to individual and group characteristics of users. Uncertain and incomplete knowledge and formal methods to represent and reason on it are the key issues we considered in our studies. As far as the type of answer is concerned,  we dealt with methods for generating natural language texts and hypermedia and for simulating dialogs with Embodied Conversational Agents.

The approach we employed in our research has always been interdisciplinary. We established long-standing cooperations with psycholinguists (to develop inner models of human reasoning), experimental psychologists (for designing evaluation studies), linguists and experts in computer graphics. The following are ongoing research projects in which we are involved at present:

·   a cognitive model of mixed emotion activation, which considers how personality and context factors may influence endogenous and exogenous triggering of emotional states;

·   a model of 'natural' argumentation, in which non-strictly rational factors (such as 'deception' and 'emotional state of the two interlocutors') are considered, to study how they affect the argumentation strategy selected and its formulation in natural language;

·    a model of how emotions affect the dynamics of belief and goal activation/deactivation and their  prioritization, in emotional dialogs;

·    a standard mark-up language to specify the connection between message content and the way the message should be expressed (in natural language texts or through body signs of ECA);

·    an agent-based architecture for simulating interaction in pervasive and ubiquitous contexts (Ambient Intelligence)

In our experiences in the mentioned domains, we developed our studies according to a 'iterative design' method, by performing periodical evaluation studies in cooperation with experimental psychology groups (in

particular, the University of Reading).

Description of Key Researchers: Fiorella de Rosis as Scientific Manager

Fiorella de Rosis is a full Professor of  Informatics. She teaches ‘Human Computer Interaction’ in the 3rd-year 'Laurea Breve' in Informatics and Communication and  'Intelligent Interfaces' in the Master Degree in Computer Science.

Her research interests are focused on the following areas:

  a.. user-adapted generation of natural language and multimedia messages

  b.. uncertainty in user models

  c.. affective factors in human-computer interaction

  d.. 'natural' dialogs with Embodied Animated Agents

She coordinates the Intelligent Interfaces Research Group, where several Projects in this area are being developed. Until a few months ago, she was the coordinator of the PhD School of Informatics, at the University of Bari. In the last 10 years, she coordinated several National Projects on Medical Informatics, participated in three European Projects (EPIAIM, OPADE and MagiCster) and coordinated an ERASMUS Project. She is currently involved in Humaine (Human-Machine Interaction Network of Excellence on Emotions), whose general aim is to equip European teams to develop systems that register, model and/or influence human emotional and emotion-related states.

She is in the Editorial board of the International Journal of User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, was the Guest Editor of some Special Issues of Jounals on Affective Computing, acted as a Chair of User Modeling ‘03 and is the author of more than 100 papers, many of which on refereed Journals and books.

Berardina Nadja De Carolis

Assistant Professor and Research Associate at the Department of Informatics, University of Bari, where she teaches "Computer Architectures" and "Agent-Based Systems".

Her main competences and interests are in the field of adaptive interaction with intelligent environments and natural language generation.

She is the author of about 50 publications, many of which on refereed Journals and Conference Proceedings. She participated in several EU projects (EPIAIM, OPADE and MagiCster) and is currently involved in Humaine and in the Prin2003 National Project about Ambient Intelligence.

Sebastiano Pizzutilo

Associate Professor of informatics,  he is teaching "Computer Architecture" and "Distributed Systems"  within the Curriculum of Informatics, Faculty of Science of the University of Bari.

He is a member of the Scientific Committee for the Information System of the Bari University of Bari. His research interests include:

formal methods for evaluating user-adapted interfaces,

agent theories and languages,

distributed systems,

Intelligent Interfaces and distributed agents: user and context adaptation.

computer architecture simulation .

He is involved in HUMAINE and in the National Project  PRIN 2003 on ambient intelligence.

UoB1. F. de Rosis, C. Castelfranchi, V. Carofiglio and R Grassano: Can Computers Deliberately Deceive? A Simulation Tool and its Application to Turing's Imitation Game Computational Intelligence.

UoB2. M. Miceli, F. de Rosis and I. Poggi: Emotional and non emotional persuasion. in press on "Applied Artificial Intelligence: an International Journal".

UoB3. D.C Berry, L T Butler and F de Rosis:  Evaluating a realistic agent in an advice-giving task. International Journal of Human-Computer studies, in press.

UoB4. A.Cavalluzzi, V.Carofiglio and F.de Rosis: Affective Advice Giving Dialogs. In E André, L.Dydkjaer, W Minker and P Heisterkamp: Affective Dialogue Systems. Springer LNAI 3068, 2004.

UoB5. F de Rosis, B De Carolis, V Carofiglio and S Pizzutilo: Shallow and inner forms of emotional intelligence in advisory dialog simulation. In H Prendinger and M Ishizuka (Eds): "Life-like Characters. Tools, Affective Functions and Applications". Springer, 2003.

UoB6. B. De Carolis, G. Cozzolongo, S. Pizzutilo, V.L. Plantamura. "Agent-Based Home Simulation and Control", ISMIS 2005, Saratoga Springs NewYork.

UoB7. B. De Carolis. Adapting Home Behavior to its Inhabitants. 10th International Conference on User Modeling. July 2005. Edinburgh.

UoB8. Berardina De Carolis, Giovanni Cozzolongo, Sebastiano Pizzutilo: Generating Personalized Tourist Map Descriptions. IEA/AIE 2005: 259-268

UoB9. B. de Carolis, C. Pelachaud, I. Poggi, M. Steedman, “APML, a Mark-up Language for Believable Behavior Generation”, in H. Prendinger, Ed, Life-like Characters. Tools, Affective Functions and Applications, Springer, 2004.

UoB10.F de Rosis, B De Carolis, V Carofiglio and S Pizzutilo: Shallow and inner forms of emotional intelligence in advisory dialog simulation. In H Prendinger and M Ishizuka (Eds): "Life-like Characters. Tools, Affective Functions and Applications". Springer, 2003.

 UoB11. B. De Carolis, G. Cozzolongo, S. Pizzutilo, V.L. Plantamura. "Agent-Based Home Simulation and Control", ISMIS 2005, Saratoga Springs NewYork.

UoB12. S.Pizzutilo, F.Tangorra, “An Object-Oriented Educational Tool to Simulate Multilevel Computer Architectures”  Int. Journ. of Modelling and Simulation, vol 23, num.1, 2003 , Acta Press, pp.13-21.

 

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