[pt] Chatbots são programas de computador que interagem com usuários utilizando linguagem natural. Desde sua origem, a tecnologia avançou significantemente e aplicações baseadas na nuvem de grandes empresas permitiram que desenvolvedores criassem chatbots inteligentes e eficientes. No entanto, não há muitas abordagens de desenvolvimento aos principais módulos de um chatbot que são flexíveis o suficiente para permitir a criação de chatbots diferentes para cada domínio, mantendo um robusto controle de diálogo na aplicação. Existem trabalhos que tentam desenvolver uma abordagem mais flexível, cada um com suas vantagens e desvantagens. Uma das vantagens mais notáveis é o uso de sistemas multiagentes para distribuir e realizar tarefas feitas por chatbots. Nesse contexto, este trabalho propõe um framework geral e flexível baseado em sistemas multiagentes para construir chatbots em um domínio escolhido pelo desenvolvedor, com controle de diálogo na aplicação. Esta solução usa uma adaptação da abordagem de estado da informação, e agentes de software, para gestão do diálogo. Para validar a arquitetura proposta, um cenário de uso com 4 chatbots de prova de conceito são analisados e discutidos. / [en] Chatbots are computer programs that interact with users using natural language. Since its inception, the technology has advanced greatly and cloud-based platforms from big companies allow developers to create intelligent and efficient chatbots. However, there are not many development approaches to the main modules of a chatbot that are flexible enough to allow the creation of different chatbots for each domain, while maintaining a robust dialogue control in the application. There have been some works that try to develop a more flexible approach, each of them with their own advantages and disadvantages. One of the most notable advantages is the use of multi-agent systems to distribute and perform the tasks performed by the chatbot. In this context, this work proposes a general and flexible architecture based on multi-agent systems for building chatbots in any domain chosen by the developer, with dialogue control in the application. This architecture uses an adaptation of the information state approach, also using software agents, to perform dialogue management. To validate the proposed architecture, an user scenario involving the implementation of 4 proof of concept chatbots is analyzed discussed.

本文旨從語用和語音方面，來探討中文「敘述性」言談(narrative discourse)對話中，說話者自然產生的節拍手勢。在語用方面，主要是觀察說話者使用節拍手勢表達前後景(Grounding)和新/舊訊息(Information state)的關係。研究結果發現，說話者較常使用節拍手勢來傳達前景(foreground)的新訊息，以提示聽話者注意。此外，說話者在敘述的過程中，常使用節拍手勢來預示前後景訊息的轉換。在語音方面，主要探討說話者使用節拍手勢時，其所對應的語句之音調高低及說話能量強度的關係。研究發現，語句的音高和強度無法預測這類手勢的產生；但是，當傳達前景的新訊息時，這類手勢的出現常伴隨著較強的語氣。此外，研究結果也顯示，說話者使用節拍手勢通常是有規律性的。 / This thesis investigates gestural beats in Chinese narrative discourse at both pragmatic and acoustic levels. The relationship among grounding, information state and beat gestures is examined at the pragmatic level, and at the acoustic level, the relationship among pitch, intensity, and gestural beats is analyzed. Moreover, whether there is a rhythmic pattern for beat gestures is further studied. The subjects were four undergraduates who were asked to view an animated color cartoon episode and then to immediately recount the events in it to a listener. The subjects were audio-video taped. They were not informed of the particular interest of the study. 291 beats were transcribed and analyzed. The audio data was analyzed on Praat and a Kay’s Model 4100. The continuous beats were further analyzed to investigate the rhythmic patterns and were annotated in Anvil, a video annotation tool. Gestural beats, narrative data, and the annotations were statistically analyzed and five phenomena for beat gestures were explored. First, gestural beats can appear in both foregrounded and backgrounded clauses. Second, the occurrence of beat gestures signals shifts between levels of the narrative structure. Third, speakers usually incline to utter new information in foregrounded clauses in Chinese narrative discourse with accompanying beats. Fourth, neither intensity nor pitch changes can predict and correlate with the occurrence of gestural beats in the relationship between beats and two acoustic factors. However, when grounding and the information state of the associated referents are considered, beats are produced for new information in foregrounded clauses with greater intensity. Finally, there is a rhythmic pattern in the production of continuous beats and the regularity of the patterns correlates with the clause boundary. A close relationship is revealed between speech and gestures in this thesis. The findings provide some linguistic details that may help explore the performance of gestural beats and speech in Chinese narrative discourse.

La raréfaction des sources de production conventionnelles et leurs émissions nocives ont favorisé l’essor notable de la production renouvelable, plus durable et mieux répartie géographiquement. Toutefois, son intégration au système électrique est problématique. En effet, la production renouvelable est peu prédictible et issue de sources majoritairement incontrôlables, ce qui compromet la stabilité du réseau, la viabilité économique des producteurs et rend nécessaire la définition de solutions adaptées pour leur participation au marché de l’électricité. Dans ce contexte, le projet scientifique Winpower propose de relier par un réseau à courant continu les ressources de plusieurs acteurs possédant respectivement des fermes éoliennes offshore (acteurs EnR) et des centrales de stockage de masse (acteurs CSM). Cette configuration impose aux acteurs d’assurer conjointement la gestion du réseau électrique.Nous supposons que les acteurs participent au marché comme une entité unique : cette hypothèse permet aux acteurs EnR de tirer profit de la flexibilité des ressources contrôlables pour minimiser le risque de pénalités sur le marché de l’électricité, aux acteurs CSM de valoriser leurs ressources auprès des acteurs EnR et/ou auprès du marché et à la coalition de faciliter la gestion des déséquilibres sur le réseau électrique, en agrégeant les ressources disponibles. Dans ce cadre, notre travail s’attaque à la problématique de la participation au marché EPEX SPOT Day-Ahead de la coalition comme une centrale électrique virtuelle ou CVPP (Cooperative Virtual Power Plant). Nous proposons une architecture de pilotage multi-acteurs basée sur les systèmes multi-agents (SMA) : elle permet d’allier les objectifs et contraintes locaux des acteurs et les objectifs globaux de la coalition.Nous formalisons alors l’agrégation et la planification de l’utilisation des ressources comme un processus décisionnel de Markov (MDP), un modèle formel adapté à la décision séquentielle en environnement incertain, pour déterminer la séquence d’actions sur les ressources contrôlables qui maximise l’espérance des revenus effectifs de la coalition. Toutefois, au moment de la planification des ressources de la coalition, l’état de la production renouvelable n’est pas connue et le MDP n’est pas résoluble en l’état : on parle de MDP partiellement observable (POMDP). Nous décomposons le POMDP en un MDP classique et un état d’information (la distribution de probabilités des erreurs de prévision de la production renouvelable) ; en extrayant cet état d’information de l’expression du POMDP, nous obtenons un MDP à état d’information (IS-MDP), pour la résolution duquel nous proposons une adaptation d’un algorithme de résolution classique des MDP, le Backwards Induction.Nous décrivons alors un cadre de simulation commun pour comparer dans les mêmes conditions nos propositions et quelques autres stratégies de participation au marché dont l’état de l’art dans la gestion des ressources renouvelables et contrôlables. Les résultats obtenus confortent l’hypothèse de la minimisation du risque associé à la production renouvelable, grâce à l’agrégation des ressources et confirment l’intérêt de la coopération des acteurs EnR et CSM dans leur participation au marché de l’électricité. Enfin, l’architecture proposée offre la possibilité de distribuer le processus de décision optimale entre les différents acteurs de la coalition : nous proposons quelques pistes de solution dans cette direction. / Renewable Energy Sources (RES) has grown remarkably in last few decades. Compared to conventional energy sources, renewable generation is more available, sustainable and environment-friendly - for example, there is no greenhouse gases emission during the energy generation. However, while electrical network stability requires production and consumption equality and the electricity market constrains producers to contract future production a priori and respect their furniture commitments or pay substantial penalties, RES are mainly uncontrollable and their behavior is difficult to forecast accurately. De facto, they jeopardize the stability of the physical network and renewable producers competitiveness in the market. The Winpower project aims to design realistic, robust and stable control strategies for offshore networks connecting to the main electricity system renewable sources and controllable storage devices owned by different autonomous actors. Each actor must embed its own local physical device control strategy but a global network management mechanism, jointly decided between connected actors, should be designed as well.We assume a market participation of the actors as an unique entity (the coalition of actors connected by the Winpower network) allowing the coalition to facilitate the network management through resources aggregation, renewable producers to take advantage of controllable sources flexibility to handle market penalties risks, as well as storage devices owners to leverage their resources on the market and/or with the management of renewable imbalances. This work tackles the market participation of the coalition as a Cooperative Virtual Power Plant. For this purpose, we describe a multi-agent architecture trough the definition of intelligent agents managing and operating actors resources and the description of these agents interactions; it allows the alliance of local constraints and objectives and the global network management objective.We formalize the aggregation and planning of resources utilization as a Markov Decision Process (MDP), a formal model suited for sequential decision making in uncertain environments. Its aim is to define the sequence of actions which maximize expected actual incomes of the market participation, while decisions over controllable resources have uncertain outcomes. However, market participation decision is prior to the actual operation when renewable generation still is uncertain. Thus, the Markov Decision Process is intractable as its state in each decision time-slot is not fully observable. To solve such a Partially Observable MDP (POMDP), we decompose it into a classical MDP and an information state (a probability distribution over renewable generation errors). The Information State MDP (IS-MDP) obtained is solved with an adaptation of the Backwards Induction, a classical MDP resolution algorithm.Then, we describe a common simulation framework to compare our proposed methodology to some other strategies, including the state of the art in renewable generation market participation. Simulations results validate the resources aggregation strategy and confirm that cooperation is beneficial to renewable producers and storage devices owners when they participate in electricity market. The proposed architecture is designed to allow the distribution of the decision making between the coalition’s actors, through the implementation of a suitable coordination mechanism. We propose some distribution methodologies, to this end.