LINGUIST List 11.1911

Tue Sep 12 2000

Confs: Agent Interaction & Agent Learning Workshops

Editor for this issue: Michael Appleby <michaellinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Anton Nijholt, Speakers at Workshop "Interacting Agents"

CELE-Twente Workshops "LEARNING TO BEHAVE"
Workshop series on (Human-)Agent Interaction and Agent Learning

October 18-20, 2000 "Interacting Agents" (Enschede, Netherlands)
November 22-24, 2000 "Internalising Knowledge" (Ieper, Belgium)

ORGANISED BY
CTIT (Parlevink, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands)
& Centre for Evolutionary Language Engineering (CELE, SAIL Port
Western Europe,Ieper, Belgium)

INTRODUCTION
The Center for Evolutionary Language Engineering (CELE) and the
Parlevink research group of the Computer Science department of the
University of Twente are organising a two-part workshop series on
human-agent interaction and information processing.
The workshops will investigate human-agent interaction and knowledge
both on the level of the agent's communication with the external
environment and the level of the agent's internal processes that
guide the modelling and understanding of the external sensory input
in the brain.

SPEAKERS AT WORKSHOP I: "INTERACTING AGENTS"
18-20 OCTOBER, ENSCHEDE (NETHERLANDS)
The first workshop, Interacting Agents, will focus on the agents'
interaction with the environment, the use of conversational strategies,
non-verbal communication, turn-taking, protocols, cross-media
references, and the effect of context. This involves the study and
design of artificial, embodied agents living in a virtual environment
that can use language and other forms of communication, such as gesture
and gaze, to interact with users and other agents. The goal is to
review state of the art research on multi-modal communication and
embodied multi-agents.

Keynote Talks :
- ------------------
Communication with Virtual Humans. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann (Director of
Miralab, Geneva, Switzerland)

Key Problems in Creating Embodied Autonomous Agents. Norman I. Badler
(Director Center for Human Modeling and Simulation, Pennsylvania, USA)


Regular and Invited Talks:
- ---------------------------------
Adding lifelike synthetic characters to the web: Experience with
different player technologies. (Invited Talk) Elisabeth Andr� (DFKI,
Germany)

Title not yet known. Yasmine Arafa (Intelligent and Interactive
Systems, Imperial College, London)

Conversational transparency and friendliness in a cooperative dialogue
agent. (Invited Talk) Harry Bunt (Tilburg University, Tilburg,
Netherlands)

Co-habited Mixed Reality and Context. Sabine Geldof (AI-lab, Vrije
Universiteit, Brussels)

A facial repertoire for avatars. Paul ten Hagen et al. (Centre for
Mathematics and Computer Science, Amsterdam)

Evaluating Interactive Characters - going beyond body language.
(Invited Talk) Kristina H��k (SICS, Sweden)

First experimentation of situated interactions with a talking AIBO.
Frederic Kaplan (Sony CSL, Paris)

The instructable agent Lokutor. Jan-Torsten Milde (Universit�t
Bielefeld)

Design issues for Intelligent navigation and assistance agents in
virtual environments. R. op den Akker et al. (Parlevink, University of
Twente)

Representing multimodal input in a unification-based system: the
Staging project. Patrizia Paggio & Bart Jongejan (Center for
Sprogteknologi, Copenhagen, Denmark)

A specification technique for building interface agents in a Web
environment. Boris W. van Schooten (Parlevink research group,
University of Twente)

Efficient Cloth Model for Dressing Animated Virtual People. Bernhard
Spanlang (Department of Computer Science, University College, London)

Agents As Attention-based Interfaces. (Invited Talk) Roel Vertegaal
(Queens University, Kingston, Canada)


Special Session on "Theatre and Virtual Reality"
- --------------------------------------------------------------
Mapping Dialogue Acts to Narrative Functions for Interactive
Storytelling. (Invited Talk) Marc Cavazza (University of Teesside, UK)

The Bunny Dilemma: Stepping between Agents and Avatars. Ricardo Imbert
(Technical University of Madrid, Spain)

Expressive Sound Environments. Jonatas Manzolli (Interdisciplinary
Nucleus for Sound Studies, University of Campinas, Brazil)

Composing and editing structured 3D stories. Patrizia Palamidese
(CNR-CNUCE, Pisa, Italy)

Using Choreographed Electronic Motion to Create Mood in Virtual
Environments. Rachel Price, Craig Douther, Mervyn A. Jack (Centre for
CIR, The University of Edinburgh)

Empowering the Audience in Virtual Performances. Nikitas Sgouros
(University of Piraeus, Greece)


PARTICIPATION/REGISTRATION/INFORMATION
Details about registration and location is available on website:
http://parlevink.cs.utwente.nl/ (follow the link Learning to Behave)

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Chairs: Dirk Heylen (Twente), Kristiina Jokinen (CELE), Anton
Nijholt (Twente)
Mahoro Anabuki, Mixed Reality Systems Lab, Yokohama, USA
Elisabeth Andr�, DFKI, Germany
Norman I. Badler, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Marc Cavazza, Bradford University, UK
Kristina H��k, SICS, Sweden
Lewis Johnson, USC/ISI, USA
Marc Leman, University of Ghent, Belgium
Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann, Miralab, Geneva, Switzerland
Risto Miikkulainen, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Klaus Obermayer, Technical University of Berlin, Germany
Luc Steels, VUB, Belgium

HONORARY CHAIRS
Dirk Frimout, CELE/Flanders Language Valley
Roel Pieper, University of Twente/Lernout & Hauspie


SPEAKERS AT WORKSHOP II: "INTERNALISING KNOWLEDGE"
22-24 NOVEMBER, IEPER (BELGIUM)
The second workshop, Internalising Knowledge, concentrates on internal
aspects of learning via interaction: computation in brain-like systems.
The goal is to investigate cognitive models for information processing
and coordination, especially how symbolic processing, conceptualisation
and language learning take place in neural models. This includes
investigations on the special characteristics of speech and language
with respect to the architecture and functional diversity of the brain,
cortical organisation and representation of information, as well as on
the mechanisms of transforming analogue signals, coming through the
senses, into discreet symbols that are used as a means of thought and
language.

A FULL LIST OF SPEAKERS WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON
Invited Talks:
- ----------------
Charlotte Hemelrijk (Computer Science, University of Zurich)
Marc Leman (Department of Musicology, Ghent University, Belgium)
Risto Miikkulainen (Computer Science, Un. of Texas, Austin, USA)
Klaus Obermayer (TU Berlin, Germany)
Luc Steels (AI Lab, Vrije Universiteit, Brussels)