In recent years many people have built Personal Assistant Agents, Information Agents and the like, and have simply added them to the operating system as auxiliary applications, without regard to architecture. This thesis argues that an agent architecture, one designed as a sophisticated representation of an individual user, should be embedded deep in the device system software, with at least equal status to the GUI – the graphical user interface. A sophisticated model of the user is then built, drawing upon contemporary Analytical Psychology – the Psychology of Subselves. The Shadowboard Agent architecture is then built upon that user model, drawing both structural and computational implications from the underlying psychology. An XML DTD file named Shadowboard.dtd is declared as a practical manifestation of the semantics of Shadowboard. An implementation of the Shadowboard system is mapped out, via a planned conversion of two existing integrated systems: SlimWinX, an event-driven GUI system; and XSpaces, an object-oriented tuplespace system with Blackboard-like features. The decision making mechanism passes logic terms and contraints between the various sub-agent components (some of which take on the role of Constraint Solvers), giving this agent system some characteristics of a Generalised Constraint Solver. A Shadowboard agent (built using the system) consists of a central controlling autonomous agent named the Aware Ego Agent, and any number of sub-agents, which collectively form an integrated but singular whole agent modelled on the user called the Digital Self. One such whole-agent is defined in a file named DigitalSelf.xml – which conforms to the schema in Shadowboard.dtd - which offers a comprehensive and generic representation of a user’s stance in a 24x7 network, in particular - the Internet. Numerous types of Shadowboard sub-agents are declared.

The present study is aiming to evaluate the Intelligent Personal Assistants usage motivations, addressing at the same time various privacy issues and concerns related to this emergent technology. To fulfil the purpose of the study I have applied two different research methods. Initially, a web survey conducted gathered 18 respondents answering 24 questions related to the presented topic. Subsequently, was organised a focus group by gathering seven respondents who shared their opinions on the subject of research. Two research questions were developed based on two hypotheses. First research question: “To what extent IPA users agree to personal data collection in order to gratify their sought needs?”; exploring the participants’ opinions when it comes to the degree of acceptance of personal information disclosure to gratify their needs. Moreover, second research question: “What are the motivating criteria that determine the usage of IPA?”. This question develops opinions and experiences on the usage of Intelligent Personal Assistants, as well as the way people perceive this new technology. The finding of this studies reveals that users of new media are concerned and aware of their personal data collection. However, as a result, they feel trapped in the network society by the peer pressure towards the usage of favourite mediums. Therefore, the denial of technology would bring unfavourable consequences from a social perspective. Further researches can be conducted on this topic, addressing in depth the Artificial Intelligence and its societal implications, possible utilities of the Intelligent Personal Assistants as a companion for children, elders and people with disabilities, Artificial Intelligence used in public administration. Consequently, many different aspects can be explored having the topic of this thesis as a starting point.

and keywords This work is focused on the integration of high school students with special educational needs. The first part of the work deals with legislation, school counseling facilities, the integration process viewed by schools, attitudes toward handicapped people in our society and other conditions that determine the recent way of integration. The second part of the work is aimed at the integration of high school students who are physically and perceptually handicapped. These students form the most numerous group of individually integrated students at high schools with school leaving exam. The work is also aimed at the individual integration of students with autism spectrum disorders. The reason why this part of the work deals with these two types of integration is that the high school education methodology have been made only for them. The third part contains research that observes experience of teachers teaching integrated students, their professional awareness, the learning process and assessment of individual integration. Keywords: high school, inclusive education, integration of students with special educational needs, teaching assistant, a personal assistant, intact student.

Les récents développements de l’intelligence artificielle, de l’Internet des objets et des outils de reconnaissance vocale, couplés à la démocratisation des appareils électroniques de grande consommation et à la couverture Internet étendue maintenant disponible dans plusieurs pays industrialisés, ont permis la mise en marché à grande échelle d’assistants vocaux personnels, qui consistent en des logiciels installés sur différents appareils tels que des téléphones cellulaires et des haut-parleurs connectés permettant aux utilisateurs de ces appareils d’interagir avec ceux-ci au moyen de commandes vocales. L’adoption de technologies permettant aux utilisateurs d’interagir avec des objets connectés à l’Internet au moyen de leur voix connaît une forte croissance, et celles-ci constitueront bientôt l’un des modes d’interaction privilégiés pour utiliser l’Internet. Considérant la vaste nature des opérations réalisées au moyen de l’Internet en général et de l’Internet des objets en particulier, il convient de se questionner sur la manière de documenter les interactions entre un utilisateur et un assistant vocal. Le présent mémoire adopte une approche comparant le cadre juridique québécois à différents cadres juridiques avec l’objectif de procéder à une qualification technique et juridique des assistants vocaux et des éléments de preuve en découlant. Dans un second temps, ce mémoire s’intéresse à la recevabilité et à la force probante de ces éléments de preuve dans le contexte du droit civil québécois. L’auteur se penche sur les conditions de recevabilité, discutant de la qualification du document technologique et de ses attributs, nommément ainsi qu’en premier lieu son authenticité et son intégrité et de la proportionnalité. L’auteur discute des exceptions à la recevabilité, soit spécifiquement l’atteinte aux droits fondamentaux et le respect du secret professionnel. Ensuite, l’auteur discute de la force probante de la preuve technologique en avançant que la compréhension de la technologie sous-jacente est l’élément clef dans l’évaluation de la force probante de tout élément de preuve technologique. L’auteur propose que l’intelligence artificielle relève d’une nouvelle catégorie de preuve qui commande peut-être des changements à la procédure et aux principes judiciaires québécois. / Recent developments in the fields of artificial intelligence, of the Internet of Things and of voice recognition, together with the accessibility to electronic devices and wide Internet connection in the industrialized countries, led to the introduction of virtual personal assistants. This software, installed on various devices such as mobile phones and smart speakers, allow their users to interact with these devices using their voice. As these technologies allow their users to interact with connected devices through the Internet, they will most likely become the main gateway to the Internet in a near future. Considering the great variety of tasks performed with connected devices, the legal questions regarding evidence generated by and collected from their use must now be asked. First, this master’s thesis will compare the normative frameworks of both Quebec and other jurisdictions in order to define, technologically and legally, the virtual personal assistants and the evidence they generate. In a second time, this thesis will focus on the admissibility and the probative value of the evidence garnered from virtual personal assistants, in the context of Quebec’s civilist tradition. The author focuses on the conditions of admissibility and on the designation of technological documents and of their characteristics, analyzing first and foremost the criteria of authenticity and integrity and the questions of proportionality. The author discusses exceptions to admissibility, especially the violation of a fundamental right and privilege considerations. Furthermore, the author discusses the probative value of technological evidence, proposing that the understanding of the underlying technology is a key factor in the determination of the probative value of any technological evidence. Finally, the author suggests that artificial intelligence creates a new category of technological evidence that might be calling for changes in the judicial principles and procedures of the province of Quebec.

ŘEHÁKOVÁ, Radka. A Personal Assistance for People with Mental Disorder in Chosen Areas. Praha: Philosophical Faculty, Charles University, 2012, 72 pp. Master's Thesis. The diploma thesis attends to personal assistance for people with mental disorder. The thesis is divided on theoretic and experimental part. The theoretic section describes people with mental disorder and summarises problems of personal assistance comprehensively. This part also gives an overview of contemporary services and trends in care for people with mental infliction in the Czech Republic. The experimental section consists of two parts. The first part focuses on mapping and basic characteristics of organization offering personal assistance to people with mental disorderb in Královéhradecký region and Prague. The data found out in both regions are comapared to each other. The aim of the second part of the research is to learn information and attitude of users' parents to service provided in chosen regions. Keywords: personal assistance, people with mental disorder, personal assistant, organization providing personal assistance, parents of users of personal assistance

Problems dealing with individual and group integration of mentally handicapped pupils in terms of fulfilment the compulsory school attendance are very often discussed. In the diploma work I have concentrated on a research of fulfilment the basic conditions of integration and problems that parents and educationalists solve during integration of mentally handicapped pupils into elementary schools. Workers from specially-pedagogical centres for mentally handicapped people, educationalists providing education for integrated pupils and these integrated pupils'parents form together the experimental complex. Following methods and techniques of collecting data were used to reach the aim - the methods of standardized interviews, the methods of inquiry-form researchs and as a complementary method two matter studies. My diploma work could by inspiration for mentally handicapped pupils'parents, common educationalists, special educationalists and authorities of state administration.

This thesis focuses on analysis, definition and description of mobile personal assistants as a phenomenon emerging in past few years. Mobile personal assistants are first mentioned in the context of computational linguistics and information needs, which is one of the motivations to use them. Main interest of this thesis is an introduction of the core technologies for the natural language communication between the assistant and its user, followed by an introduction of host environments and possible usage. The thesis also presents the limitations and risks resulting from using them, which are in some ways affecting their usability. Beside the analysis the main focus is on the design and implementation of the natural language understanding (NLU) system, which can be used in particular personal assistant application. This system is implemented as a web service and consists of an annotation scheme with a set of components. The results show that the system architecture and tools used are suitable solution for the construction of a basic NLU system, which has been created and which is in the compliance with the requested parameters. It is still difficult task to achieve high precision, which depends on many factors including the amount of training data, which was very small in this case. However, the resulting application is a solid starting point for its further development and extensions.