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Melinda T. Gervasio

Other affiliations: Artificial Intelligence Center
Bio: Melinda T. Gervasio is an academic researcher from SRI International. The author has contributed to research in topics: User modeling & User interface design. The author has an hindex of 14, co-authored 42 publications receiving 1301 citations. Previous affiliations of Melinda T. Gervasio include Artificial Intelligence Center.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The models and technical advances required to satisfy the competing needs of preference modeling and elicitation, constraint reasoning, and machine learning are described and a multifaceted evaluation of the perceived usefulness of the PTIME system is reported.
Abstract: In a world of electronic calendars, the prospect of intelligent, personalized time management assistance seems a plausible and desirable application of AI. PTIME (Personalized Time Management) is a learning cognitive assistant agent that helps users handle email meeting requests, reserve venues, and schedule events. PTIME is designed to unobtrusively learn scheduling preferences, adapting to its user over time. The agent allows its user to flexibly express requirements for new meetings, as they would to an assistant. It interfaces with commercial enterprise calendaring platforms, and it operates seamlessly with users who do not have PTIME. This article overviews the system design and describes the models and technical advances required to satisfy the competing needs of preference modeling and elicitation, constraint reasoning, and machine learning. We further report on a multifaceted evaluation of the perceived usefulness of the system.

239 citations

Patent
01 Jun 2009
TL;DR: In this paper, an apparatus for assisting a user in the execution of a task, where the task includes one or more workflows required to accomplish a goal defined by the user, includes a task learner for creating new workflows from user demonstrations, a workflow tracker for identifying and tracking the progress of a current workflow, a task assistance processor coupled with the workflow tracker, and a task executor coupled to the task assist processor, for manipulating an application on the machine used by user to carry out the suggestion.
Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for assisting with automated task management In one embodiment, an apparatus for assisting a user in the execution of a task, where the task includes one or more workflows required to accomplish a goal defined by the user, includes a task learner for creating new workflows from user demonstrations, a workflow tracker for identifying and tracking the progress of a current workflow executing on a machine used by the user, a task assistance processor coupled to the workflow tracker, for generating a suggestion based on the progress of the current workflow, and a task executor coupled to the task assistance processor, for manipulating an application on the machine used by the user to carry out the suggestion

238 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
10 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The experimental results provide evidence of PLIANT's ability to learn user preferences under various conditions and reveal the tradeoffs made by the different active learning selection strategies.
Abstract: We present PLIANT, a learning system that supports adaptive assistance in an open calendaring system. PLIANT learns user preferences from the feedback that naturally occurs during interactive scheduling. It contributes a novel application of active learning in a domain where the choice of candidate schedules to present to the user must balance usefulness to the learning module with immediate benefit to the user. Our experimental results provide evidence of PLIANT's ability to learn user preferences under various conditions and reveal the tradeoffs made by the different active learning selection strategies.

238 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An intelligent personal assistant that has been developed to aid a busy knowledge worker in managing time commitments and performing tasks and is highly user centric in its support for human needs, responsiveness to human inputs, and adaptivity to user working style and preferences.
Abstract: We describe an intelligent personal assistant that has been developed to aid a busy knowledge worker in managing time commitments and performing tasks. The design of the system was motivated by the complementary objectives of (1) relieving the user of routine tasks, thus allowing her to focus on tasks that critically require human problem-solving skills, and (2) intervening in situations where cognitive overload leads to oversights or mistakes by the user. The system draws on a diverse set of AI technologies that are linked within a Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agent system. Although the system provides a number of automated functions, the overall framework is highly user centric in its support for human needs, responsiveness to human inputs, and adaptivity to user working style and preferences.

213 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results show that the diversity of aspects captured by the different interestingness elements is crucial to help humans correctly understand an agent's strengths and limitations in performing a task, and determine when it might need adjustments to improve its performance.

72 citations


Cited by
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Patent
11 Jan 2011
TL;DR: In this article, an intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions.
Abstract: An intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions. The system can be implemented using any of a number of different platforms, such as the web, email, smartphone, and the like, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the system is based on sets of interrelated domains and tasks, and employs additional functionally powered by external services with which the system can interact.

1,462 citations

Patent
19 Oct 2007
TL;DR: In this paper, various methods and devices described herein relate to devices which, in at least certain embodiments, may include one or more sensors for providing data relating to user activity and at least one processor for causing the device to respond based on the user activity which was determined, at least in part, through the sensors.
Abstract: The various methods and devices described herein relate to devices which, in at least certain embodiments, may include one or more sensors for providing data relating to user activity and at least one processor for causing the device to respond based on the user activity which was determined, at least in part, through the sensors. The response by the device may include a change of state of the device, and the response may be automatically performed after the user activity is determined.

844 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: A framework is presented for the system design and development that addresses the communication and information needs of first responders as well as the decision making needs of command and control personnel, and it permits the development of dynamic emergency response information systems with tailored flexibility to support and be integrated across different sizes and types of organizations.
Abstract: This paper systematically develops a set of general and supporting design principles and specifications for a "Dynamic Emergency Response Management Information System" (DERMIS) by identifying design premises resulting from the use of the "Emergency Management Information System and Reference Index" (EMISARI) and design concepts resulting from a comprehensive literature review. Implicit in crises of varying scopes and proportions are communication and information needs that can be addressed by today's information and communication technologies. However, what is required is organizing the premises and concepts that can be mapped into a set of generic design principles in turn providing a framework for the sensible development of flexible and dynamic Emergency Response Information Systems. A framework is presented for the system design and development that addresses the communication and information needs of first responders as well as the decision making needs of command and control personnel. The framework also incorporates thinking about the value of insights and information from communities of geographically dispersed experts and suggests how that expertise can be brought to bear on crisis decision making. Historic experience is used to suggest nine design premises. These premises are complemented by a series of five design concepts based upon the review of pertinent and applicable research. The result is a set of eight general design principles and three supporting design considerations that are recommended to be woven into the detailed specifications of a DERMIS. The resulting DERMIS design model graphically indicates the heuristic taken by this paper and suggests that the result will be an emergency response system flexible, robust, and dynamic enough to support the communication and information needs of emergency and crisis personnel on all levels. In addition it permits the development of dynamic emergency response information systems with tailored flexibility to support and be integrated across different sizes and types of organizations. This paper provides guidelines for system analysts and designers, system engineers, first responders, communities of experts, emergency command and control personnel, and MIS/IT researchers. SECTIONS 1. Introduction 2. Historical Insights about EMISARI 3. The emergency Response Atmosphere of OEP 4. Resulting Requirements for Emergency Response and Conceptual Design Specifics 4.1 Metaphors 4.2 Roles 4.3 Notifications 4.4 Context Visibility 4.5 Hypertext 5. Generalized Design Principles 6. Supporting Design Considerations 6.1 Resource Databases and Community Collaboration 6.2 Collective Memory 6.3 Online Communities of Experts 7. Conclusions and Final Observations 8. References 1. INTRODUCTION There have been, since 9/11, considerable efforts to propose improvements in the ability to respond to emergencies. However, the vast majority of these efforts have concentrated on infrastructure improvements to aid in mitigation of the impacts of either a man-made or natural disaster. In the area of communication and information systems to support the actual ongoing reaction to a disaster situation, the vast majority of the efforts have focused on the underlying technology to reliably support survivability of the underlying networks and physical facilities (Kunreuther and LernerLam 2002; Mork 2002). The fact that there were major failures of the basic technology and loss of the command center for 48 hours in the 9/11 event has made this an understandable result. The very workable commercial paging and digital mail systems supplied immediately afterwards by commercial firms (Michaels 2001; Vatis 2002) to the emergency response workers demonstrated that the correction of underlying technology is largely a process of setting integration standards and deciding to spend the necessary funds to update antiquated systems. …

596 citations

Patent
28 Sep 2012
TL;DR: In this article, a virtual assistant uses context information to supplement natural language or gestural input from a user, which helps to clarify the user's intent and reduce the number of candidate interpretations of user's input, and reduces the need for the user to provide excessive clarification input.
Abstract: A virtual assistant uses context information to supplement natural language or gestural input from a user. Context helps to clarify the user's intent and to reduce the number of candidate interpretations of the user's input, and reduces the need for the user to provide excessive clarification input. Context can include any available information that is usable by the assistant to supplement explicit user input to constrain an information-processing problem and/or to personalize results. Context can be used to constrain solutions during various phases of processing, including, for example, speech recognition, natural language processing, task flow processing, and dialog generation.

593 citations

Patent
08 Sep 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, a method for building an automated assistant includes interfacing a service-oriented architecture that includes a plurality of remote services to an active ontology, where the active ontologies includes at least one active processing element that models a domain.
Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for building an intelligent automated assistant. Embodiments of the present invention rely on the concept of “active ontologies” (e.g., execution environments constructed in an ontology-like manner) to build and run applications for use by intelligent automated assistants. In one specific embodiment, a method for building an automated assistant includes interfacing a service-oriented architecture that includes a plurality of remote services to an active ontology, where the active ontology includes at least one active processing element that models a domain. At least one of the remote services is then registered for use in the domain.

389 citations