Thesis (M. S.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Gregory Corso, Committee Member ; Bruce Walker, Committee Chair ; Arthur Fisk, Committee Member.

Thesis (M. S.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Chirstopher Hertzog, Committee Member ; Ruth Kanfer, Committee Member ; Fredda Blanchard-Fields, Committee Chair.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 145-158).

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

abstract: Natural Language Processing is a subject that combines computer science and linguistics, aiming to provide computers with the ability to understand natural language and to develop a more intuitive human-computer interaction. The research community has developed ways to translate natural language to mathematical formalisms. It has not yet been shown, however, how to automatically translate different kinds of knowledge in English to distinct formal languages. Most of the recent work presents the problem that the translation method aims to a specific formal language or is hard to generalize. In this research, I take a first step to overcome this difficulty and present two algorithms which take as input two lambda-calculus expressions G and H and compute a lambda-calculus expression F. The expression F returned by the first algorithm satisfies F@G=H and, in the case of the second algorithm, we obtain G@F=H. The lambda expressions represent the meanings of words and sentences. For each formal language that one desires to use with the algorithms, the language must be defined in terms of lambda calculus. Also, some additional concepts must be included. After doing this, given a sentence, its representation and knowing the representation of several words in the sentence, the algorithms can be used to obtain the representation of the other words in that sentence. In this work, I define two languages and show examples of their use with the algorithms. The algorithms are illustrated along with soundness and completeness proofs, the latter with respect to typed lambda-calculus formulas up to the second order. These algorithms are a core part of a natural language semantics system that translates sentences from English to formulas in different formal languages. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Computer Science 2010

abstract: Goal specification is an important aspect of designing autonomous agents. A goal does not only refer to the set of states for the agent to reach. A goal also defines restrictions on the paths the agent should follow. Temporal logics are widely used in goal specification. However, they lack the ability to represent goals in a non-deterministic domain, goals that change non-monotonically, and goals with preferences. This dissertation defines new goal specification languages by extending temporal logics to address these issues. First considered is the goal specification in non-deterministic domains, in which an agent following a policy leads to a set of paths. A logic is proposed to distinguish paths of the agent from all paths in the domain. In addition, to address the need of comparing policies for finding the best ones, a language capable of quantifying over policies is proposed. As policy structures of agents play an important role in goal specification, languages are also defined by considering different policy structures. Besides, after an agent is given an initial goal, the agent may change its expectations or the domain may change, thus goals that are previously specified may need to be further updated, revised, partially retracted, or even completely changed. Non-monotonic goal specification languages that can make these changes in an elaboration tolerant manner are needed. Two languages that rely on labeling sub-formulas and connecting multiple rules are developed to address non-monotonicity in goal specification. Also, agents may have preferential relations among sub-goals, and the preferential relations may change as agents achieve other sub-goals. By nesting a comparison operator with other temporal operators, a language with dynamic preferences is proposed. Various goals that cannot be expressed in other languages are expressed in the proposed languages. Finally, plans are given for some goals specified in the proposed languages. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Computer Science 2010

abstract: Action language C+ is a formalism for describing properties of actions, which is based on nonmonotonic causal logic. The definite fragment of C+ is implemented in the Causal Calculator (CCalc), which is based on the reduction of nonmonotonic causal logic to propositional logic. This thesis describes the language of CCalc in terms of answer set programming (ASP), based on the translation of nonmonotonic causal logic to formulas under the stable model semantics. I designed a standard library which describes the constructs of the input language of CCalc in terms of ASP, allowing a simple modular method to represent CCalc input programs in the language of ASP. Using the combination of system F2LP and answer set solvers, this method achieves functionality close to that of CCalc while taking advantage of answer set solvers to yield efficient computation that is orders of magnitude faster than CCalc for many benchmark examples. In support of this, I created an automated translation system Cplus2ASP that implements the translation and encoding method and automatically invokes the necessary software to solve the translated input programs. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Computer Science 2011

Futebol é um esporte fascinante que capta a atenção de milhões de pessoas no mundo. Equipes de futebol profissionais, bem como os meios de comunicação, têm um profundo interesse na análise de partidas de futebol. Análise estatística é a abordagem mais usada para descrever um jogo de futebol, no entanto, muitas vezes eles não conseguem captar a evolução do jogo e as mudanças de estratégias que aconteceram. Neste trabalho, apresentamos Visual Soccer Match Analysis (VSMA), uma ferramenta para a compreensão dos diferentes aspectos relacionados com a evolução de um jogo de futebol. A nossa ferramenta recebe como entrada as coordenadas de cada jogador durante o jogo, bem como os eventos associados. Apresentamos um design visual que permite identificar rapidamente padrões relevantes em jogo. A abordagem foi desenvolvida em conjunto com colegas da área da educação física com experiência em análise de futebol. Validamos a utilidade da nossa abordagem utilizando dados de várias partidas, juntamente com avaliações de especialistas. / Soccer is a fascinating sport that captures the attention of millions of people in the world. Professional soccer teams, as well as the broadcasting media, have a deep interest in the analysis of soccer matches. Statistical summaries are the most-used approach to describe a soccer match. However, they often fail to capture the evolution of the game and changes of strategies that happen. In this work, we present the Visual Soccer Match Analysis (VSMA) system, a tool for understanding the different aspects associated with the evolution of a soccer match. Our tool receives as input the coordinates of each player throughout the match and related events. We present a visual design that allows to quickly identify relevant patterns in the match. Our approach was developed in conjunction with colleagues from the physical education field with expertise in soccer analysis. We validated the system utility using several matches together with expert evaluations.

O projeto de produtos e sistemas técnicos complexos requer a compreensão em nível de sistemas e subsistemas para formular soluções eficientes e integradas ao seu contexto. Para auxiliar esta compreensão, o conhecimento de projeto deve ser representado utilizando níveis adequados de abstração de acordo com a fase do projeto. A fase de projeto conceitual requer tipos de representação capazes de atingir um alto nível de abstração para a exploração de conceitos que conduzam a soluções criativas. O paradigma da orientação a objetos, que é fundamentado pela abstração, faz parte da engenharia de software, mas também pode ser aplicado para o projeto de artefatos físicos porque permite a representação dos elementos do mundo real através de uma linguagem simples, acessível e com alto nível de abstração. Ademais, o paradigma da orientação a objetos permite a reutilização do conhecimento de projeto devido à sua capacidade de estruturar a informação em um formato adequado para isto. O presente trabalho propõe um framework para representar o conhecimento de projeto de produto aplicando o paradigma da orientação a objeto. Inicialmente, foram identificados os elementos conceituais da tese e suas relações, para na sequência definir o modelo do framework e o seu método de aplicação O framework utiliza uma linguagem de representação diagramática que pode evoluir desde um mapa mental, com elementos diversificados e pouco ordenados, até uma rede estruturada de classes e relacionamentos em um modelo de classes. Um modelo de classes pode concentrar conhecimento sobre o projeto, servindo como uma estrutura geral que conecta e relaciona diferentes blocos de informação associados aos produtos e sistemas que estão sendo elaborados. A verificação da aplicabilidade do framework foi realizada por especialistas da área de design mediante o desenvolvimento de um projeto de produto em nível conceitual e do preenchimento de questionário de avaliação. / The design of complex technical products requires understanding at the system and subsystem level to formulate efficient and integrated solutions to their context. To support this understanding, the project knowledge can be represented using appropriate levels of abstraction according to the project phase. The conceptual design phase requires types of representation that reach a high level of abstraction for the exploration of concepts that lead to creative solutions. The object-oriented paradigm is based on abstraction and is part of software engineering, but can also be applied to the design of physical artifacts because it allows the representation of realworld elements through simple, accessible and in high-level abstraction language. In addition, the object orientation paradigm supports the reusability of project knowledge due to its capacity to structure the information in patterns. The present work proposes a framework to represent product design knowledge using the objectoriented paradigm First, the conceptual elements of the thesis and their relationships were identified, after; the framework model and their method of application were constructed. The framework uses a diagrammatic representation language in which a mental map, with diversified and unordered elements, can progress into a structured network of classes and relationships in a class model. A class model can focus knowledge about the project, serving as a general structure that connects and relates different blocks of information associated with the products and systems being developed. The verification of the applicability of the framework was carried out by specialists in the design area through the development of a product design at conceptual level and the answering an evaluation questionnaire.

abstract: Different logic-based knowledge representation formalisms have different limitations either with respect to expressivity or with respect to computational efficiency. First-order logic, which is the basis of Description Logics (DLs), is not suitable for defeasible reasoning due to its monotonic nature. The nonmonotonic formalisms that extend first-order logic, such as circumscription and default logic, are expressive but lack efficient implementations. The nonmonotonic formalisms that are based on the declarative logic programming approach, such as Answer Set Programming (ASP), have efficient implementations but are not expressive enough for representing and reasoning with open domains. This dissertation uses the first-order stable model semantics, which extends both first-order logic and ASP, to relate circumscription to ASP, and to integrate DLs and ASP, thereby partially overcoming the limitations of the formalisms. By exploiting the relationship between circumscription and ASP, well-known action formalisms, such as the situation calculus, the event calculus, and Temporal Action Logics, are reformulated in ASP. The advantages of these reformulations are shown with respect to the generality of the reasoning tasks that can be handled and with respect to the computational efficiency. The integration of DLs and ASP presented in this dissertation provides a framework for integrating rules and ontologies for the semantic web. This framework enables us to perform nonmonotonic reasoning with DL knowledge bases. Observing the need to integrate action theories and ontologies, the above results are used to reformulate the problem of integrating action theories and ontologies as a problem of integrating rules and ontologies, thus enabling us to use the computational tools developed in the context of the latter for the former. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Computer Science 2012